


1979

by westernredcedar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Humor, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Infidelity, Lusty Month of May, M/M, Many many kinks, Many many variations on partners, Multi, Threesomes, Violence, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-31
Updated: 2012-07-07
Packaged: 2017-11-09 08:32:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 43,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/453468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westernredcedar/pseuds/westernredcedar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1979: one of the worst years of Remus's life. Also, one of the best.</p><p>Primarily a Remus/Severus story, written for pervy_werewolf's Lusty Month of May challenge, 2008, so mind the smut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. January 1, 1979

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd, Brit-picked, and guided by the amazing blpaintchart, night after night for the entire month.

If the first ten minutes were any indication, Remus thought, 1979 was going to be a very interesting year.

That thought was quickly drowned out, however, by the intense sensation of the warm, wet mouth on his prick sucking him in deep, and he threw his head back against the wall and moaned.

“We should not be doing this,” Remus said, but he could not quite make himself sound like he meant it. The strong fingers digging into the back of his thighs did not help.

Seven hours ago, way back in 1978, Remus had stood and politely smiled and applauded as his best mates James and Lily announced their engagement to the guests at the New Year’s party. There was much cheering and toasting at first, followed by innuendo and teasing and firewhiskey shooters, and then dimming lights and dancing and champagne and drunken groping amongst friends. When the clock turned to midnight, Remus had pecked his friend Alice on the lips, but his eyes had locked with James, who was in mid-snog with Lily, _his fianceé_ , but who was still managing to give Remus his most infuriating what-do-you-say-mate expression.

Remus had watched James whisper something to Lily and then meander to the bedroom. He had surreptitiously followed, swaying on a stormy sea of whiskey, champagne, and anticipation. The bedroom was deserted, but the cupboard door was ajar, and when Remus approached, a greedy hand reached out from the dark cupboard and pulled him in. James had pressed him into the wall and dropped to his knees.

Just like old times.

The rowdy sounds of the party just outside the cupboard door made Remus’s aching prick even harder. He could hear Sirius trying to sing something. Loudly.

“We cannot do this anymore, James,” Remus said again, his eyes closed as James’s tongue explored the sensitive ridge of skin around the head of his prick. “Fuck, that’s good.”

“I’m not married yet,” James muttered into Remus’s balls.

It had started with watching each other wank in fourth year, wanking each other in sixth, and then sucking each other off about once a month in seventh. It was habit: comforting, familiar, and fucking hot. They had both been in relationships with other people off and on throughout their trysts, but Remus had always managed to justify getting blown by his supposedly straight friend, at least to himself. James was just for fun, no ties, no romance. He was an exception to the relationship rules.

Remus was fairly certain that marriage was going to be the deal-breaker, however.

James had started in on a steady rhythm, the friction from his lips running up and down the shaft of Remus’s prick. The sensation pulled his drifting mind back to the present.

“Damn, Prongs, how do you do that?” Remus whispered, leaning his bony shoulders back against the wall of the cupboard and pressing his hips out into James’s face.

James laughed, and the vibrations shivered up into Remus’s gut. “You’ve given me ample opportunity to practice, Moony.”

A loud chorus of laughter filtered into the cupboard from the party, and in response James sucked him in hard and fast, pumping the base of Remus’s cock with his hand and flicking his tongue against his weeping slit.

“Finish me off. I’m close,” Remus moaned. His knees shook when he felt his cock hit the back of James’s throat. James’s fingers tugged at his balls as he sped up, his head bobbling at a furious pace, his scruffy dark hair tickling across Remus’s belly, the warmth of his mouth and the pressure of his lips pulling Remus right up to the edge until he had to, _had to_ thrust, thrust, thrust and then he shouted, and James backed off, and Remus was coming, coming, coming, dripping onto James’s hand and trousers and the dark floor of the cupboard.

Remus slid down the wall until he was sitting, panting and sweating and sated. James collapsed back against the opposite wall.

“That’s the last time, James. I can’t do this to Lily.” Remus fumbled with his belt. 

“Oh ho, nice try, mate. You can’t end this thing one up on me. You owe me one.” James’s voice was both teasing and serious.

Remus shook his head. “That’s fucked up, mate. You should want your future wife to take care of that for you now, not me.”

“Don’t be an arse about this, Moony. You are sitting in a cupboard, cock-out and dripping. Your moral high ground is about ten-feet below the soil right now.” James wiped the back of his hand against his mouth and breathed deeply.

“I’m not doing this again.” Remus stood up in the dark space, adjusting his cords and preparing to rejoin the party.

“You’re rejecting me now, Moony? What the fuck? Have you got Snivellus sucking you off again as well? No need for a bit of blow on the side anymore?” James snapped.

Remus closed his eyes and took a calming breath. “No one else is sucking me off, James. _You_ are getting married. Now, wipe my spunk off your trousers and go back to your fianceé.” Then he opened the door and walked out of the cupboard, grabbing his coat from the bed. He sneaked out the back door of the house without saying his farewells to anyone.

Yes, Remus thought again as he pulled up his collar against the cold drizzle and lit a fag, 1979 was going to be an interesting year.


	2. January 15, 1979: Day

The dole office was a ten-minute walk from the flat he shared, and Remus started out just after dawn to get in line. In was another drizzly gray day, the layer of low heavy clouds pressed down like a damp blanket.

He had a job interview later in the day, so he wore his cleanest corduroys and his father’s old houndstooth jacket under his tatty raincoat. Watching the pavement pass under his feet, he took drags from his fag as he walked. He was still achy and tired from the full moon two days previously, a new gash on his knee making each step painful, but he pressed on. Rent was due.

Remus was not sure what first caught his eye, but he noticed the familiar figure from across the road. That skinny, hunched body and the long stringy black hair were unmistakable, even hidden under a grey-blue Muggle Great Coat. Seeing that thin silhouette sent an unwanted shot of fire through Remus’s body.

In the two weeks since the New Year’s disaster with James, Remus had holed up in his room to write and smoke and sulk. James had not contacted him, and he had not contacted James.

However, James’s harsh comments had forced Remus to think about Severus again, Severus, who had walked away on the last day at Hogwarts and never looked back. Now, here was the man himself, plowing down the pavement in a Muggle section of London, looking, based on the hour and the shameful hang of his head, like he might be heading towards the job centre as well.

Remus stamped out his cigarette and hurried to catch up with him, his reason quickly giving in to his desire. _You walk very fast_ , Severus had observed to Remus once, with something close to approval in his voice, as they had walked across the grounds back at school.

He’d thought he might be in love with Severus then, before things had gone so very wrong.

Remus knew better than to call out; Severus would disappear on him. Instead, he hurried up and fell into stride beside him, matching his rapid pace, hands in his pockets. Severus did not look up, but from the slight hesitation in one of his steps, Remus knew he had been noticed.

“Where are you off to?” Remus asked, his voice low.

Severus did not speak for a moment. “Where ever you are not,” he said at last.

“That is odd,” Remus replied, “as I’m going where ever you are going.”

Severus sped up, and Remus’s legs started to burn from walking so fast. It felt like a chase.

“Sod off, wolf,” Severus murmured, and he glanced over at Remus with his dark, cold eyes. Remus shivered.

“I’m permitted to walk on a public street, Severus.”

“And I am permitted to tell you to _sod off_.”

They turned into the small road that connected through to the job centre. It was quiet and deserted, the shops still closed. Remus broke into a trot and dashed ahead of Severus by several strides, then turned around and stepped into Severus’s path, forcing him to a halt. Remus pressed his palms against the thick, rough wool of Severus’s coat and pushed him against the window of the nearest shop.

“Get your paws off me, you…”

Severus did not finish his sentence. Remus couldn't stop himself, couldn't think, just silenced Severus with a violent kiss, slamming his mouth into the thin, wide lips poised to tell him off. He forced his tongue between the stiff lips that refused to yield. Severus tasted just the same: stale smoke and anise and stubbornness.

Severus’s hands shoved desperately against Remus’s chest, pushing him away, but Remus had always been much stronger and a good four inches taller, and he did not let him, insisting on sustaining the kiss. Severus’s struggle made Remus more determined not to give in, the physical contact making his prick jump to attention. He ground against Severus and bit at his lower lip with a moan.

Severus finally gave way and softened his lips, and Remus ran his tongue over his lips and teeth. The hands pushing against him slackened and grabbed hold of handfuls of houndstooth, pulling Remus closer, and then Severus lunged in with a hot, open mouth, his tongue twining with Remus’s and his thigh pressing in between Remus’s legs.

They remained locked together for a long moment, and Remus allowed himself to dissolve into the kiss, letting the sensations erase everything: the gray sky, the war, the dole, his job interview, James. Gods, it felt good. He knew it the moment he lost the control and Severus regained it, but he was too drunk on the kiss to care.

Severus shoved hard, flipped Remus around, and slammed his back into the window, freeing himself and stepping back, panting. Remus let him go.

“When I get to where I am going, you will not want to be there,” Severus said, and then spit at Remus’s feet. “Stop following me and leave me alone, you bloody…beast!” He spun around and almost ran off down the road and around the corner.

Remus sagged back against the window behind him and ran a finger over his lips, which felt bruised and swollen. The oppressive sky was heavier and denser than ever, and as he pulled himself up to go and collect his cheque the skies opened and the rain poured down.


	3. January 15, 1979: Night

“Yes…harder…oh gods…fuck…no no no don’t slow down…right there…oh right there…oh fuck…”

The moaning grew louder as Remus walked down the corridor towards the shabby flat he shared with Gideon Prewett. At the door, he stopped and placed his ear against the thin wood. As he expected, the voice echoing in the corridors was coming from within.

Gideon had brought Dorcas over, it seemed.

Remus was still buzzing from his arousing run-in with Severus on the street, and even though it was hours later, Dorcas’s moans brought his unsatisfied prick instantly back to life. Wondering if Gideon had remembered to close his bedroom door this time, Remus waved his wand over the locks and let himself into the flat.

“…to the right…oh bollocking hell, Gideon Prewett, there it is!...you are fucking brilliant…oh that's the stuff…oh fuck…oh oh oh…”

Remus grinned. Dorcas and Gideon had been together for the past two months, and Remus had grown accustomed to her loud running commentary during sex. It was entertaining and usually rather stimulating. Gideon’s door was closed today, but the walls of their dumpy flat were thin as tissue, and they might as well have been fucking on Remus’s lap for all the privacy they had.

That interesting mental image brought Remus’s hand down to the growing bulge in his trousers.

“…yes…another finger…oooh…harder, harder, harder…more, more more…yes, oh yes yes, fuck, yes…I’m coming…I’m coming…I’m coming…Yes, fuck, YES! YES!”

Remus’s prick was straining against the zip of his cords, and he was preparing to drop his bag and coat and have a quick wank in his room when the door to Gideon’s room opened and Gideon peered his head out.

“Thought I heard the door open, mate,” he said. His forehead was coated in sweat, and stray curls of red hair were plastered to his face. There was a shiny gloss on and around his lips. His chest rose and fell with deep breaths.

Remus looked away and opened his mouth to tell Gideon he would be in his room, but Gideon spoke first.

“Want to join in?” he asked, as casually as if asking whether Remus wanted a cup of tea.

“What?” Remus froze, and his cock gave a lurch.

“We were just talking about it before you got home, if you’re in the mood. No pressure, just a bit of fun. Right, Dorcas?” Gideon threw the door open wider so that Remus could see Dorcas, spread-eagled on the edge of the bed. She pushed herself up on her elbows and winked at Remus. Her spiky blonde hair was matted and damp.

“If he’s up for it,” she said, eyeing Remus. “I told you what I want, if you think he can deliver.” Dorcas was three years older than Remus and Gideon. She was a powerful and intimidating witch, trusted and influential in the Order, and somehow, even though she was lying vulnerable on the bed, Remus felt like he was the one stripped naked.

“She likes it...up the arse sometimes,” whispered Gideon, waggling his eyebrows at Remus. Remus eyed Dorcas with even greater respect. It must have taken nerves of steel to ask Gideon for that particular taboo. “As I know you partake in the odd backdoor action yourself, I thought I might get the two of you together.” Gideon’s voice dropped even lower. “She wants us both to...you know... _at the same time_. What do you say?”

Remus could not move, his mouth had gone dry staring at his bollocks-naked roommate and his powerhouse girlfriend, his cock straining against his trousers, and the memory of Severus’s burning kiss imprinted on his lips.

Oh, what the hell.

“This has been a bloody odd day,” Remus said, and walked into Gideon’s room, dropping his coat in the doorway.

“Is that a yes?” asked Dorcas from the bed, her eyes wide.

“That,” replied Gideon with a grin, “is a yes.”

Remus removed the houndstooth coat and hung it on the doorknob. Gideon walked behind him and ran his hands up under his shirt to help him pull it off.

“I got a job today,” Remus said as Gideon removed his shirt and tossed it to the floor. Remus shivered at exposing his scarred body to Dorcas, but she was watching Gideon and did not seem to notice.

“Yeah? Nice one, mate!” Gideon said as he walked back towards Dorcas on the bed, pulling her up and nuzzling her neck.

“Where?” asked Dorcas. Her hand moved slowly through the damp hair between her legs.

“Bookstore. Just a few hours a week, but better than nothing.” Remus knew his face and chest were crimson as he unbuckled his belt, and then, at last, unzipped and released his stiff prick from the confining corduroy. He slid his trousers and pants off, and moved to the side of the bed with Gideon and Dorcas.

“Well, mate, I’m glad to see our plan appears to be of interest to you,” said Gideon as he eyed Remus’s erection. Gideon’s own cock, which had softened as they spoke, was quickly re-filling with blood and rising from his patch of red curls. Remus was accustomed to seeing Gideon naked around the flat, but never aroused, and his prick became, if possible, harder at the sight.

“Will you two stop the chit-chat and put one of those things in me now, please,” said Dorcas, and Gideon turned and laughed, grabbing her into a warm kiss and then pulling her down on top of him, his legs hanging over the edge of the bed. She straddled his hips and grabbed his prick in her large hand, guiding it to her slit and sliding down on to him in one smooth movement.

Watching from behind her, Remus groaned in harmony with Gideon. This was an odd day, indeed.

Dorcas started a slow rhythm, riding up and down Gideon’s cock, her hands braced by his shoulders, and her tits bouncing in his face. Each time she sank down on him, he let out a stifled moan, a sound Remus recognized from countless nights wanking to the same glorious noise through the wall.

“Oh fuck me with your hard cock…oh yes,” Dorcas started, and Remus groaned again. Oh damn, the dirty talk. Her meaty arse was hanging over the edge of the bed, open and wanting, and he was going to fuck her now. Hers was not the lean, sinewy body of his fantasies, but if he couldn’t have what he really wanted, he mused, at least he wasn’t sitting alone wanking over a pathetic memory.

“So do you have any...slippery stuff? To help?” he asked, fisting his straining cock and suddenly afraid that he would not be able to last to fulfill Dorcas’s request. _No more thinking about Severus._

“There's KY by the pillow,” Dorcas said, and Remus was relieved to hear she knew of the stuff. “Make your prick nice and slippery for me, Remus, and let me feel you slide up inside me…oh shite, yes, Gideon fucking Prewett, you slut…” Dorcas was picking up the pace of her thrusts, and as Remus scrambled to find the tube of KY, he noticed that Gideon had thrown his head back and closed his eyes, his moans keeping pace with Dorcas’s rhythm.

Remus coated his hand in grease and slathered it over himself. Positioning himself behind Dorcas as her arse moved up and down on Gideon’s prick, he found her soft hole with his slick fingers and pressed in. She must like arse-play, he thought, because she was relaxing easily and beginning to open to him.

“Only one finger, Remus?…I can take more…oh yes, harder, add another one…and another…I’m ready for you…oh fuck, stay with me Gideon…you are going to come with me…”

His fingers in her arse, Remus almost whited out when he realised he could feel Gideon’s cock moving inside her. 

He pulled out his fingers and grappled his slippery prick, then bent his knees deep and slowly pushed inside.

All three of them groaned as one voice.

Dorcas set the pace, and Remus thought he would last about five seconds as soon as she moved, the added pressure of Gideon’s prick pressing up inside her as well almost too much sensation to bear. He grabbed at the soft flesh at Dorcas’s hips and held on, allowing himself to push in deeper until his balls were slapping her skin.

“…you are filling me up…oh oh fuck…yes…oh oh, bloody hell yes…”

Lupin could feel Gideon, thrusting firm and hard, through the soft wall of flesh separating them. Gideon was grunting and Dorcas was gasping, her voice becoming louder and more breathless. Remus moved, sliding in and out in time with Gideon. Oh fuck.

"...so full...so fucking full! Oh oh, I can't...oh gods yes..."

The feel of Remus in her must have pushed Gideon to the point of no return, because he suddenly grabbed Dorcas’s lower back to gain some leverage and pounded into her in rapid thrusts, his moans turning to a long low groan as he came, jerking up and deep, shuddering and tensing, his legs kicking out behind Remus.

Gideon’s orgasm sent Remus over the edge, and he thrust in once more and groaned as he came hard, filling Dorcas’s other hole and then sliding out and collapsing backwards onto the floor, his legs shaking with the effort of squatting and thrusting and coming.

“…dripping with come, gods I feel so filthy you sluts…oh fuck…oh fuck…Gideon, gods, thank you…oh yes…thank you…amazing…” Dorcas leaned down and Remus watched as she kissed Gideon soft and long and deep, and Remus was tempted to sneak out of the room, more embarrassed by watching the intimacy between them than by any of what they had just done. He sprawled back on the rug, panting and tingling.

“Did we lose you, Remus?” asked Gideon from the bed.

“I’m here,” he responded in a bleary voice.

“That was just what I wanted. Thank you, Remus,” said Dorcas. “Don't you regret it later. I know I won’t.”

“I can't imagine regretting that,” said Remus from the floor. “But I’m just going to take myself off now.” He started to crawl towards the door.

Gideon and Dorcas both laughed. “You can stay, mate,” Gideon offered, and Remus looked back to see the lovers entwined on the bed.

“Nah, I need to clean up and go to sleep. Work tomorrow, you know,” Remus said with a smile.

As he crawled out of the room to the sounds of Gideon and Dorcas whispering and laughing and kissing behind him, Remus suddenly pictured Severus’s dark form darting, no _running_ , around the corner that morning to get away from him. Damn. This had been a very odd day.


	4. February 2, 1979

The back room at Flourish and Blotts was hot and cramped. Boxes and piles of books and paper and packaging materials were scattered in unconventional order around the small space. On the back wall of the room, generations of overworked employees had scrawled dirty-sounding quotes from various texts, and Remus was in the midst of making his own addition to the intellectual graffiti when there was a knock at the door.

 _“…the size of the wand is a measure of its potency…”_ He was copying from  Wand Lore Through the Ages, as Mr. Bibliat’s bald head peeped around in the door.

“Remus, I need you to cover the desk for a few minutes,” he said. “I have to nip out to Gringott’s for some change.”

Remus hid his quill behind his back and smiled at his boss. “Of course, sir.”

Working at the bookshop had proved a perfect match for Remus’s personality and interests, although he was only given twenty hours of work a week, and the pay was minimal. For the first time since leaving school, he felt like he belonged somewhere. In these last weeks, he had proved himself trustworthy enough to be left running the desk in the rare moments that Mr. Bibliat or Sophie had to step out.

Which is why he was alone at the desk when Severus walked in.

There were two other customers in the store, and Severus did not look towards the desk as he entered, keeping his head down and his hands buried in the pockets of his same woolen Great Coat. He strode directly to the Rare Spells and Potions section, and then looked up intently at the shelf Remus knew was filled with books about Spell and Potion development.

Mr. Bibliat returned moments later, blustering and complaining to Remus about the goblins and their complicated forms. Remus sensed Severus turn to see who was interrupting the quiet of the shop. He knew the moment Severus noticed him, and when he looked over Severus had plunged his nose into a heavy tome.

“I’ll see if I can assist these customers and then return to unpacking the new order, Mr. Bibliat,” said Remus.

“Thank you, Mr. Lupin. We are so lucky to have you.” Remus was still watching Severus, and could see his shoulders tense and stiffen as Mr. Bibliat said his name.

Remus walked directly from the desk to where Severus was standing.

“May I help you, sir?” he asked.

“No. I told you to leave me alone. I do not need anything from you.” Severus did not look up from his book, but Remus was close enough to smell his pomade, and his sweat, and beneath that, the faint tang of arousal. He suppressed a smile.

“If you have any questions, I’ll be in the back,” he said quietly, and dragged a single finger down Severus’s spine in one teasing motion before he walked away to the stock room, his heart thumping at his daring. Ever since his night with Gideon and Dorcas, he had felt a bit more reckless, and a bit more lonely.

Remus unpacked, logged, and tagged three more boxes of books before there was a single tap at the door.

Heart still knocking in his chest, Remus opened the door. Severus was standing there, holding the same large book he had been reading.

“I have a question,” he said in his deep tone.

Remus felt his face heat. He stepped back. “Come in and I can help you,” he said, ushering Severus into the room. Remus peered out the door, but Mr. Bibliat was talking to a tall witch at the desk and had not looked their way. He shut the door. There was no lock.

Severus had opened the book on the cluttered counter. “I need to know the meaning of this word.” He pointed at the miniscule calligraphy in the book with a long finger.

Remus approached. The word Severus was pointing to was _dangerous_.

“I know what that means,” Remus said, and he grabbed the hand Severus was pointing with and pulled it to his mouth, sucking in the long finger, wrapping his searching tongue around it. He locked eyes with the smaller man as he sucked and teased his finger, and his knees shook when he realised that Severus was not looking away or attempting to free his hand.

“This is not a definition,” Severus said, his face still and calm.

Remus released his finger and stepped closer. “Yes it is,” he replied.

“You are an animal. You tried to kill me,” Severus said.

“Then run away.”

Severus did not move.

“I did not expect to see you again.” Severus’s voice was very quiet.

“What? Never?” Remus tried not to smirk. “That was unrealistic.”

“Nonetheless,” Severus said, and he leaned in and claimed Remus’s lips in a hard kiss.

Remus pulled closer and deepened the kiss, tangling his tongue with Severus and locking their mouths together. Just as on the street, Severus’s kiss made Remus come apart in a way that no other kiss ever could and he let himself fall into the terrifying sensation. Severus’s erection was pressing against him through his protective layers of wool and black fabric, and Remus was suddenly lost in the realization that _this is really fucking happening_. He adjusted his position so that his own stiffening prick was lined up with Severus’s, and ground against him with a moan.

Severus groaned into Remus’s mouth and pressed back, and Remus was thrown into memories of groping and thrusting and the hurried, brilliant snogs before getting off that had been the stuff of their relationship, if you could call it that, for two years at school.

Remus reached down to free Severus’s hot prick from his robes, the feel of that soft, familiar foreskin an aphrodisiac. He opened his own trousers and grabbed both of their cocks in his hand and pulled.

“I’m…I’m…” Severus stuttered. Remus pulled his hands up and into Severus long, slick hair, dragging him into a kiss, and they ground their burning pricks against each other with frantic abandon.

Remus felt a cascade of warm wetness that had to be Severus coming over his cock, and the added slickness allowed Remus to rub and rut until he was coming too, his tongue darting into Severus’s mouth and his fingers pulling at his hair, hard.

Come dripping between them, Severus stepped back, staring into Remus’s eyes. “Bloody hell,” he muttered. “That…was…not...” He broke his eye contact and pulled his robes closed. “Do not ever contact me again, wolf.”

Severus grabbed his book and slammed out of the room without another word.

Breathing hard, Remus looked at the mess they had made and quickly tucked himself in and started to clean up. He knew running after Severus was pointless, he could not have found the energy to anyway, and he would _not_ find himself sacked over this.

As his body recovered from his climax, Remus smiled. If Severus thought that he was going to leave him alone after this, he did not know the first thing about Remus.

And Severus knew him fucking well.


	5. February 9, 1979

Remus waited for a few days and then sent an owl off to Severus with this message:

_Meet me. Friday. Nine o'clock. The King and Bishop. Downstairs. RL_

He spent the remainder of the week thinking about the stew he knew Severus would be in deciding whether or not to make the rendezvous.

On Friday night, he put on his old jeans, unfashionably flared now that the styles had changed, and his dark khaki green bomber jacket and headed to The King and Bishop. On street level, The King and Bishop was a respectable looking pub off a side alley in Soho. Hidden downstairs in the pub, however, was a loud, dark club catering to gay wizards who were connected enough to discover its existence. The place had a seedy and desperate air, the eyes of every man in the place both searching and guarded, the music and the alcohol thinly masking their collective fear of discovery. Remus leaned against the club’s dark wall, taking in the scene, blood pulsing to the beat of Bowie's "Breaking Glass", waiting to see if Severus would show. His relaxed posture belied the utter agony of anticipation flooding his body. He was too distracted watching the crowd to notice that someone else had slid up next to him.

“James and I were just talking about where you had got to lately, you wanker,” said a voice at his shoulder moments before a warm hand slid around the back of his neck and soft lips brushed his ear. “Haven’t seen you since New Year’s.”

Bollocks and Shite. Sirius.

Remus turned to his friend. “Padfoot. You tosser. I’ve been busy. Got a job.”

Sirius leaned up against the wall next to Remus, his shoulder pressing in close. “Well, you need to set your priorities straight. Mates first, then bloody _jobs_.” He lit up a cigarette.

 _Easy for him to say_ , thought Remus, _with his inheritance and his full vault at Gringott’s._ Out loud he said, “Yeah, I suppose.”

“How’s life with Gideon? He still banging Meadowes?“ Sirius asked.

Remus kept his eyes on the crowd, searching for Severus. “Yeah, he’s under the thumb. Give me a drag.”

As he passed the fag to Remus, Sirius asked, “Who are you banging, then?” with a smirk and pressed his hand to Remus’s crotch, which gave an involuntary lurch. “Or is that why you are here?”

Fucking Sirius. He had been so many things to Remus. First friend, first crush, first kiss, first wank, first fuck. First heartbreak. First boyfriend with commitment issues. First cheating. First chance at forgiveness. And the first one to help him laugh at all of it.

Somehow, they’d made it through all of that shite at school, and still come out of it as best mates.

Fucking Sirius.

Remus took a drag and looked at his watch. It was almost eleven.

“I think I’ve been stood up,” he told Sirius.

Sirius put on a glorious pout and said, “Poor Moony.” He grabbed his cigarette back and stubbed it out against the wall, then pulled on Remus’s arm. “Fuck whatever stupid git didn’t show. He’s a moron. Don’t get your knickers in a twist. There’s a room full of cock for us to conquer right here. Let’s dance.”

In his red drainpipe trews and mesh shirt, Sirius was on the dance floor exactly four seconds before he had been pulled away into a full body grind by a two tall wizards whose sweat-slicked torsos made Remus squirm. He gave Sirius a wave and made his way to a less crowded corner of the dance floor, and lost himself to the music, the drinks he had sipped while waiting for Severus catching up with him all at once. The room was hot and throbbing with energy and he let himself close his eyes and simply move.

A body sidled up behind him and boldly grabbed his arse. An unfamiliar, boozy voice said in his ear, “You’re quite a package, sweetie.” The body eased closer, and a hard cock pressed against Remus’s hip.

Remus had never been tempted by anonymous sex, but the hours of anticipating Severus’s non-arrival, and Sirius’s sudden appearance, and the mood and the music and the booze…Remus turned around to face the stranger behind him, pressing his thigh between the man’s legs and grinding to the music.

The other wizard was broad and dark-haired and older, a heavy moustache disguising his upper lip. He was not Remus’s type at all, but if he didn’t look at the man’s face, he could imagine a different dark-haired man in his place, and that thought made his cock throb. He let the man guide him into a dark corner and continue his ungraceful grinding. The man’s hands grappled at his own trousers, and then he grabbed Remus’s hand and forced his hot prick into Remus’s palm and with his other hand pressed hard on Remus’s head, trying to force him to kneel.

And then Remus did not want to be there anymore.

“I…don’t…” Remus sputtered, resisting the heavy pressure of the man’s hand on his shoulder. Then everything happened very fast. He felt the brush of magic and he could no longer speak and his knees gave way and the man’s angry cock was shoved against his face. He struggled against the magic binding him down, but he couldn’t, and his mouth was being forced open…

He heard two things simultaneously: a shout of “Remus!” and a deep, booming, voice incanting, “Sectumsempra!” and then the man in front of him collapsed to the ground, bleeding from a nasty gash on his head.

The buzz of voices died down, and all eyes in the room were focused on the little tableau in the corner. The man’s binding spells had broken when he collapsed, and Remus looked up to see to whom he owed his thanks.

Severus was standing like a Fury, fire blazing from his black eyes, wand still held towards the man now cowering in pain on the sticky floor of the club. _Dangerous._

Standing next to him, mouth agape, was Sirius.

Severus looked from Remus to Sirius, then back to Remus, and then turned on his heel (the heel of his gorgeous black boots, boots he would wear to impress, Remus noted somewhere in his muddled brain) and strode out of the club through the stunned crowd without saying a word.

Sirius darted to Remus’s side and knelt down. “What the bloody fuck was that about, Moony? Are you all right?” Remus nodded slowly. He was cold and shaking. Three bouncers had surrounded the moustached man and were dragging him to the door.

“Yeah. He stopped him before...” Remus shuddered. He wanted to run after Severus, and hold on to him tight, but he did not think he could move.

“What the fuck?” Sirius repeated, running his hands through his long hair. "This place is a real shithole."

“Can we get out of here?” Remus asked.

Sirius helped him to his feet. “Yeah.”

As they walked to the door through a sea of questioning eyes, Sirius added, “I wonder how Snivellus bloody Snape knows about The King and Bishop? If that creepy little runt is queer, I’ll cut off my left nut.”

Remus was too shaky to respond. He leaned against Sirius when it suddenly struck him.

Severus had come to meet him.

Against all odds, he smiled.


	6. February 20, 1979

The thin, dark figure had been lurking in the shadows outside the bookshop all afternoon. Remus knew he was there, but he had to finish his shift so he tried not to let himself become too distracted. It was a busy day, the new book by young heartthrob author Gilderoy Lockhart had just been released, and swarms of giggling witches had been flooding into the shop since morning. When the clock hit six, Remus said his farewells to Sophie, who was working the late shift, grabbed his cloak, and ran out the door.

He supposed he should walk slowly, or act surprised to see Severus there, but Remus didn’t have it in him. He was exhausted from the long day, and had been desperate to see Severus since that horrible night at The King and Bishop. The last three notes he had sent to him had gone unanswered.

He strode right up to Severus, who was leaning against the wall of Eeylops.

“My hero,” Remus said, as he leaned against the wall next to him.

“Shut up,” replied Severus.

Remus stood up straight and looked him in the eye, “I mean it, Severus. Thank you. You saved me the other night.”

Severus looked at him with a searching expression and then his face relaxed. “I needed to test modifications to that spell. It was a fortuitous opportunity.”

“Hmm,” said Remus with a smile. “Glad to be of service then.”

“You brought Black.” His voice was tight, and Remus suddenly realised why he had not been getting any responses to his notes.

“No,” Remus replied. “I did not bring him. He was just there. And you were late.”

Severus was silent, his lips a thin line.

“I’d like to buy you a thank you drink, if you’ll let me,” said Remus.

“I can buy my own drinks.”

“Why are you waiting here?”

Severus glared at him and did not answer, then started off down the alley at his rapid pace. Remus dashed after him.

“Where are we going?”

“A drink,” Severus replied. “Correct?”

Remus fell into pace beside him and hid his grin.

In their nervousness, the one drink turned to two. Remus was edgy and aroused as he talked in circles, unable to say any of the things he was actually thinking, but he felt the moment getting away from him as they sipped their third round of firewhiskey. After a fourth round of drinks and two hours of painful attempts at flirting and awkward silences, Remus knew they were in trouble. When he had emptied his pockets of the remainder of his dole money for the fifth and sixth rounds, Remus found himself carrying a staggering and snarling Severus out of the little dive and into the alley.

“That scum was going to hurt you,” Severus was slurring in Remus’s ear. “I could have killed him, you know.”

“Yes, you could have,” said Remus, focusing on keeping his feet moving under him, distracted by the feel of Severus's warm, pliant body pressed against him. “Good on you that you didn’t.” He propped Severus up against the brick wall by the pub. “I’m going to apparate us to my flat. All right?”

“No, my house,” said Severus with a stubborn scowl.

“I don’t know where that is,” Remus said, and he wrapped his arm around Severus’s shoulder and focused on the corridor outside his flat, turning them both in an awkward spiral.

They landed in the hallway and fell over in a heap.

Gideon was away having a long weekend camping at the coast with Dorcas, so Remus had the place to himself. He wriggled free of Severus and dragged himself up, then pulled Severus to his feet. Severus's hands were hot and grasping.

“ _This_ is where you live?" Severus said, looking around disdainfully.

Remus ignored him and ran his wand over the locks to let them in, then pulled Severus inside.

“I need to lie down,” Remus said. “And so do you.”

“Sod off,” Severus replied. “Don’t tell me what I need.” He swayed dangerously.

Remus grabbed him and pulled him towards the bedroom. Severus struggled and tried to break free of Remus’s grip, but he followed. As soon as he saw the bed he crawled onto it, still wearing his blue-grey coat and his big black boots, and collapsed face down on the quilt. 

"Bloody fucking hell," he said. "Let me off the broom."

Remus smiled and nodded in commiseration. "There's no broom. We're pissed."

"Damn." Severus rolled over and pressed his face into Remus's pillow. "Mmm. This smells like you."

"Sorry about that," said Remus, dragging off his shoes and trying to keep from falling over.

"Smells good."

Remus's heart gave a little hopeful lurch at Severus's words.

“Let’s get your coat off,” Remus said, and he tugged at Severus’s sleeves until he had removed the coat and dropped it to the floor. “That's better.”

"That _is_ better," Severus agreed into the pillow.

Removing an article of Severus’s clothes while the man lay prone on his bed was enough to get Remus’s blood pounding. He removed his own jacket and shirt, then leaned down, breathing in the scent of Severus's boozy sweat, and moved in for a kiss.

Severus let out a loud snore.

Fuck.

Remus stepped back and grabbed hold of his bedpost to keep steady. Severus’s black hair was spread across his pillow, his thin frame sprawled diagonally across the entire bed. Remus had wanted to get Severus into his bed for years, and now here he was. Severus's shirt had bunched up as Remus had pulled off his coat, and a strip of pale skin was visible at his waist, stark white in contrast with his black clothing. Remus leaned forward and ran his fingers over the soft, exposed flesh.

He shuddered, the tension and desire of the last hours overwhelming him. He stood back up and grappled his trousers open, fisting his stiffening prick. Severus snoring and drooling on his pillow was suddenly the most arousing image he had ever seen.

Fuck, this was so wrong, but Remus could not stop himself. He was shaking with longing and inebriation as he hurried his hand up and down his shaft, his foreskin tightening with every pull. _Gods, don’t let him wake up now._

Severus groaned and shifted on the bed, pulling his legs up and pushing his lovely arse out, arching his back. Remus stifled a moan and increased his pace. He felt his balls tighten and that familiar tingle start to spread up through his gut and then he came, quick and hard, shooting a load of spunk over the edge of the bed, several drops speckling Severus’s boots. He did not have the energy to walk to the loo to get a tissue, so he leaned over and licked the drops of come off the stiff leather, the taste sour and thrilling on his tongue. 

Also, he might be sick.

Remus keeled over onto the bed next to Severus, who emitted a deep groan of protest but did not resist when Remus curled up next to him, brushing his sticky fingers over the soft skin of Severus’s back. The world was spinning, and Remus closed his eyes, and then the world went black.

When he woke up in the pitch darkness several hours later, he was alone in his bed. Severus was gone.


	7. March 10, 1979

"This is not _exactly_ how I had hoped to spend my birthday, Padfoot,” said Remus, as Sirius draped his jeans over Remus’s outstretched arm and then started pulling off his socks.

“It’s going to be a world-class laugh, Moony, old mate. I guarantee this birthday to be the best sodding birthday in the history of birthdays,” Sirius replied, shoving his socks into Remus’s jacket pocket and dancing up and down on his bare feet in the cold grass. “Don’t lose those.”

They were under the stands at the Wimbourne Wasps stadium, the sounds of the game filtering through the stands above. Sirius had bought the Quidditch tickets as a gift for Remus’s birthday, and before the current situation had evolved, the two of them had been revelling in the unseasonably warm March day on the pitch, watching a close match with Falmouth.

James had been invited, apparently, but had returned some poxy excuse about needing to visit with Lily’s family; Remus knew they were still avoiding each other after the incident at New Year’s. No one knew where Peter had got to in the last month. There were a hundred reasons why Remus couldn’t invite Severus, including the fact that Severus had been ignoring him for the past eighteen days (not that he was counting). So it was just Remus and Sirius and the muscled flyers of Falmouth and Wimbourne enjoying the day together. Remus had been in heaven.

Until Sirius’s suggestion.

“I read about it in a Muggle newspaper last year. It was all the rage. Maybe I’ll make the Prophet!” Sirius pulled his t-shirt over his head, and Remus drew in a sharp breath at seeing Sirius’s toned, lean body again after so long. Sirius didn’t notice.

“Yeah. The headline will read _Idiot Ruins Friend’s Birthday_ ,” Remus replied.

“You’ll love it, Moony. Your problem is you just don't know how to have any fun.” Sirius had his thumbs hooked in the waistband of his pants. He winked. “Ready?”

Remus was not ready. He was standing in the chilly shadows, draped with Sirius’s clothes like a coat rack, about to be utterly humiliated.

“You are just going to run out there starkers?” Remus asked again.

“Yep.”

“Explain to me why exactly?”

Sirius gave him a little frown. “Remus, please. Must there always be a reason?” He kicked Remus gently with his bare foot.

“Yes.”

“Fine then.” Sirius stuck out his tongue. “I’ve kept this glorious arse of mine hidden from the world for far too long, and it is time to share the wonderment at last.” With that, Sirius pulled down his pants and flung them onto Remus’s shoulder, and Remus was taken again by how fucking _perfect_ Sirius’s body was, round arse and proud thick cock, before the blush started up from his chest and Sirius grinned. "Once they get a load of this," he gestured up and down his body, "all the birds will want me, and all the blokes will want to _be_ me. And all the poofs will want both. Greedy fuckers!" In his head, Remus grudgingly agreed.

“Happy Birthday, Moony!” he shouted, and he turned and ran out from under the stands and into the sunlight on the Quidditch pitch.

Remus followed him closely enough to get a good view.

The nature of Quidditch was such that most of the spectators were looking _up_ as Sirius streaked the field, so it took quite a show of shouting and flailing and a few bollock-bouncing star jumps for Sirius to attract anyone’s attention. He glanced over at Remus several times, his expression wild.

Remus tried not to laugh as he watched Sirius dash around the pitch, because he didn’t want to let Sirius be right about this, but sod it all, it _was_ hysterical. He broke into a broad grin.

The first gasps and laughs and pointing started from the stands, and the reaction encouraged Sirius to break into a flat-out run, circling the stadium. He was fast and beautiful and fucking funny, his cock flopping and his hair streaming behind him, waving to the crowd. Several cameras flashed.Sirius looked over at Remus and wiggled his bum. He was smiling and winking and obviously having the time of his life, and his utter joy made Remus laugh out loud.

Remus heard the Quidditch referee whistle a halt to the game and then watched him zoom down towards Sirius, followed closely by several members of the Wimbourne security team. Sirius seemed to know he was caught, so he stopped, took a run up and executed a single perfect cartwheel to wild applause from the crowd.

Every instinct in his body told Remus he should just run like fuck, but he controlled the impulse and decided to go and help. Taking a deep breath he walked out into the open.

The crowd started booing the security team as they took Sirius by the arms and attempted to walk him off the pitch. One security wizard removed his pointy hat and used it to cover Sirius’s cock and balls, which really did little to help the situation, emphasizing the area rather than detracting from it. The crowd laughed and cheered. Sirius looked up at the stands and grinned. Remus was pleased to see even the hovering Quidditch players were smiling, and the Falmouth Seeker appeared to be in hysterics.

A security wizard had noticed Remus coming towards them and rushed forward to meet him. “You there. Do you know this ... ahem... gentleman?” he asked, pointing back at Sirius.

“I’m afraid so,” Remus admitted. “I have his clothes.”

The man Accio’d Sirius’s clothes from him with a flick of his wand, and dashed back over to Sirius and the crowd of security guards moving off the pitch. A few new figures, looking suspiciously like reporters, had joined the group. As Remus walked up, a security wizard was asking Sirius, “Do you have anything to say, young man?”

“Yes,” Sirius said, and leaned towards the man with a smile. “Give us a kiss.”

Remus was amused to see that at least half of the security team had to fight against laughing themselves. In the distance, a whistle blew, and the game started again behind them.

“What shall we do with him, sir?” asked one of the men holding Sirius’s arm.

“Reunite him with his underpants, for starters," said an older wizard who appeared to be in charge, and the pair of zebra striped pants were passed through the crowd to Sirius, who pulled them on.

“You gents have tickets to the game?” the same man asked Remus.

“Yes, sir,” said Remus. “We’re here for my birthday.”

“Dear oh dear, what is the world coming too?" the man muttered. He turned to Sirius and said, “You realise no one wants to see your privates again, young man?”

Sirius appeared to be thinking the question over so Remus shouted, “He knows, sir.”

“You’ll take charge of him?”

“Yes, sir.”

The security officer paused and gave Remus an appraising look-over. Remus stood up tall and put on his most responsible expression. He man’s shoulders slumped. “Oh sod it, back to your seats you two. Don’t make us have to speak to you again. And get dressed, you.” The guards released Sirius and shoved his clothes into his hands.

“Thank you, sir. Much appreciated, sir,” said Remus, and he grabbed Sirius and dragged him away before he could say anything to change the security officer’s mind.

As soon as they had turned a corner and were out of sight of the guards, Remus cuffed Sirius in the back of the head. “You jammy git, I cannot believe you got away with that,” he said.

“You still have my socks, I hope,” Sirius replied with a grin, and Remus cuffed him again.

Sirius pulled on bits of clothes as they walked. “Don’t be like that. You adored every minute of it,” he teased, and as Remus could not deny it, he did not try.

They climbed up the stairs to their seats. When they reached an empty walkway, Sirius suddenly stopped, grabbed Remus’s arm, spun him around, and kissed him on the lips, soft and deep, and Remus melted into him. A memory.

“I hope you appreciate what I was willing to do for your sodding birthday,” said Sirius as he broke off the kiss. He brushed a hand over Remus’s cheek and stared into his eyes for a moment, then added, “Never forget that I love you, you stupid tosser,” before punching him in the arm and dashing past him up the stairs. “Now come on, we’re missing the game.”

Remus never forgot.


	8. March 24, 1979

Remus had not _meant_ to start shagging Sirius again. It had just happened.

Swept up in the adrenaline and euphoria of Sirius’s adventure on the Quidditch pitch, they had sat hip-to-hip the remainder of that afternoon, laughing and slyly touching as the Wasps and Falcons flew past. On the way out of the stadium, Sirius had started a punch fight that turned to grappling each other in hysterics, and then somehow that had turned to fondling, and then deep, tongue-tangling kisses. They had ended up naked and lost in each other on the floor of Sirius’s loft before Remus could muster the will to fret about the consequences.

He had forgotten how much damn _fun_ Sirius was in bed, with his attitude, and strut, and interest in watching the proceedings in his many mirrors. (One mirror next to Sirius's bed even enjoyed dirty-talk almost as much as Dorcas.) Sirius had always been able to make Remus feel gorgeous when he wanted to, and that had not changed.

Two weeks had passed since then, during which they had met up and brought each other off ten times, with a pause in the festivities around the full moon.

Sirius fucked around with loads of people, and that had not changed either. Sirius preferred Remus come over in the early evening so they could give each other a good seeing to, and then he would get dressed and ready to go out to a club as Remus was leaving. He invited Remus to come along, but Remus rarely had the cash or the interest. He didn’t like the thought of sharing Sirius any more than he had back at school, but at least this time it was all out in the open. And frankly, when Sirius’s experienced tongue was probing his arse and his soft hand was tugging at his leaking prick, Remus didn’t much care who Sirius would be shagging later that same night. Perhaps his tolerance was a sign he was maturing? Remus was not sure. He had a vague unease about the entire situation, but Sirius was a brilliant lay, so he tried not think much beyond that.

Perhaps Sirius was just what he needed right now? He had _almost_ convinced himself of that. 

Therefore, when he arrived home from Sirius’s flat one Saturday evening to find an owl waiting with a note from Severus, a note he had been desperate to receive two weeks previous, Remus was not at all prepared for his own response.

The note, written in cramped, angular script, said: _Hog’s Head Tavern. Hogsmeade. Sunday. Four o’clock. I will drink nothing but water. Possibly tea. SS_

Remus sat down hard, his knees shaking, Sirius’s scent all over him, and read the note several times. His heart accelerated to a dangerous rate as he read, heat and desire flooding his body in a way he had not felt since he had last seen Severus’s limp body sprawled across his bed. The awkward phrasing and subtle humour in the note sent an image spinning through his mind of Severus, thin shoulders hunched and face twisted in a scowl, scratching out dozens of rejected drafts of the letter before he settled on this one. The image made Remus flush.

Sirius was a rollicking good time, but Severus, frustrating and intense, made his blood sing.

He wanted to see Severus right at that moment, but the note said Sunday. So tomorrow it would be.

Wait. Sunday. Bloody Hell.

Dumbledore had called an Order of the Phoenix meeting for Sunday at that time, and Sirius was meeting him there, expecting that they would go home together afterwards. Fuck.

Remus collapsed back into the tattered armchair with a groan and closed his eyes.

"Damn fucking bloody sodding piss!" he yelled to no one, and then draped Severus's parchment over his face. This could not end well.


	9. March 25, 1979

The Order meeting was breaking up. People were chatting quietly and heading out the side door of Elphias Doge’s house in twos and threes, so as to not draw too much attention to the place.

It had been an uneventful but depressing meeting, a few frightening reports from the members working at the Ministry and an update from Dorcas on the futile hunt for Tiberius Thompson’s murderer. Many members were absent, including, to Remus’s relief, James and Lily.

For Remus, each presentation had seemed to ramble on forever. He had glanced at his watch every few minutes, feeling the time tick away, knowing every second meant it was less and less likely that Severus would still be waiting for him at the Hog’s Head.

Sitting at Remus’s side, Sirius had taken possession of Remus’s thigh under the table during a particularly dull speech by Dedalus. The touch should have made Remus giddy with anticipation, but today was only making him feel anxious and cross. He moved his leg away.

As Dumbledore dismissed them, Sirius leaned over and whispered in Remus’s ear. “I have two hours of free time and a jar of peanut butter at home with your name on it,” he said, and then he dragged his hand over Remus’s crotch and pinched at his hip.

Remus’s stomach clenched as he shook off Sirius’s hand and rose from his seat a bit too quickly, his breathing shallow.

“I…I can’t, Sirius. I…” he looked away from Sirius and bit the inside of his cheek, screaming at himself to _Tell him, you sodding coward, Tell him!_ He took a deep breath and met Sirius’s eyes.

“I have a date.”

The words had an immediate impact. Sirius's nostrils flared and his smile drooped into stunned surprise, eyebrows pulling together. A rare blush reddened his cheeks. “Oh. Yeah? Sure, Moony,” he said, and Remus could see the wheels of Sirius’s mind spinning with this new information. “A date.” Sirius’s voice weakened with each word. “No. That’s great, mate. Good for you.”

Remus wanted to crawl under the table in shame when Sirius actually managed to give him a smile and a half-hearted slap on the back.

Remus shook his head. He couldn’t do it. “A date…with…my mum, Sirius. For supper. Can’t get out of it. She’s being a nag.” As soon as the lie came out of his mouth, Remus felt better. Bloody hell, what kind of a Gryffindor was he?

Sirius recovered his composure, an enormous grin spreading across his face as Remus's words sank in. “Ah! Mother Lupin! Oh, of course! Give the old girl a slap on the bum from me,” he said, with a bit too much cheek to be completely natural. He stood up and grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair.

“Don’t make me think about my mum’s arse,” said Remus, feeling light as air and as low as a slug knowing Sirius had bought into his story. They walked to the door, waving farewells to Alice, Frank, and Benjy.

“I can give you a ride, Moony,” said Sirius, and then added in a low tone, “No pun intended,” elbowing Remus in the ribs as they approached his motorbike.

“No. I’ll just apparate. Thanks though, Sirius.” Remus was so near to a clean escape, each second that passed felt like an eternity, each guilt-laden moment with Sirius pure agony.

“That peanut butter will still be available tomorrow, assuming some doting Auntie won’t suddenly need you for a meal and macrame,” Sirius said as he swung his leg over the saddle of his bike.

“Yeah.” Remus hoped he sounded noncommittal. "All right."

“I’ll owl you.” With a roar, Sirius and his motorbike were gone. Remus breathed out in relief.

Thirty seconds later, he was dashing through the ancient door of the Hog’s Head Tavern at a full sprint, chest heaving. The dingy pub was almost empty, the haggard assistant barman wiping the tables in one corner (old Aberforth was still at the Order meeting), and only one customer, a woman with long black hair, visible in the corner, humming to herself. Remus skidded to a stop and peered around in the gloom.

No Severus.

He looked at his watch. Five past five.

Fuck.

Remus pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes and swore. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

“Quiet down, Lupin, or she’ll start up again,” said a deep voice from behind him. Remus spun around. Severus was sitting in a dark booth that had been hidden behind the door. He was stubbing out a fag, an assortment of empty glasses arrayed before him.

“Severus.” Remus let out a long breath, his body flooded with relief. He walked towards the booth, heart pounding. “You waited.”

“Shut it. She’s only just quietened down. I cannot take much more,” Severus continued.

“Who?”

Severus indicated the woman in the corner with a slight tilt of his head. Remus took a closer look.

“Banshee?” he whispered, as he slid into the booth across from Severus.

Severus nodded.

“Perhaps we should go somewhere else?”

“Her presence _is_ discouraging other patrons from staying for long,” Severus replied, and Remus thought he saw the corners of Severus’s lips twitch. “She seems fairly well-behaved, for a howling witch-demon. I rather like her.”

“Well then,” Remus grinned and settled back in his seat. “What have you been drinking?”

“I believe I informed you.” Severus scowled. “Water.”

Remus let out a short laugh. There were five empty glasses on the table. “That is a lot of water, Severus.”

Severus frown deepened. “You were late.”

"And you waited."

Severus glared. "I was thirsty."

“You didn’t write or floo for over a _month_.”

“You got me pissed.”

“It will be bloody inconvenient if you are going to _have to_ piss all night tonight.”

Severus froze and looked at Remus. “All night?” he said, deep and low, and the air seemed to be sucked out of the room.

Remus met his dark gaze. “All night.”

Remus could see Severus swallow, his thin neck tense and stiff. They did not break their stare. Remus licked his dry lips. He knew _exactly_ what he wanted.

Under the table, he slipped off his scuffed trainer. Pretending to scratch his foot, Remus reached down and pulled off his sock, stretching out his long toes, hidden from view. He extended his leg and brushed his bare foot along Severus’s calf. The man across from him tensed and inhaled sharply, but did not look away, or move his leg.

“I might have a beer,” Remus said, as he worked his toes up under Severus’s robes and into the leg of his trousers, inching along the bare skin on his leg. Severus did not appear to be breathing. “Shall I call the barman?” he asked.

“No!” Severus said with a jump.

Remus’s eyebrows raised. “No?”

“No alcohol.” Severus settled back down and Remus took the opportunity to move his foot out of Severus’s trousers and up his leg, brushing his toes along Severus’s inner thigh. After being swept up in Sirius’s wild fun for the last weeks, it was a new pleasure for Remus to be the one in control again. He inched his toes higher. Severus squirmed backwards in his seat, his face now bright red, and Remus slid down in the booth to wiggle his toes up even further.

“Lupin!”

“Don’t make a scene. The banshee will start up again, remember?”

“I…wait…stop…stop!” Severus’s expression verged on panic and Remus realized he really meant it.

He pulled his foot away. “What’s wrong?”

Severus swallowed. “I need to know what…what happened.”

“When? Just now?” Remus was sincerely concerned. “I removed my shoe, and…”

“No. Not now, Lupin. That night. Before. I…I don’t remember.” Severus had stopped looking at Remus and reached for his cigarettes, lighting a new one.

Remus reached across the table and grabbed Severus’s fag. “You div.” Remus took a long drag and waited for Severus's dark gaze to settle back on him. “Nothing happened. I took you home. You passed out, and so did I.”

“Oh.”

Remus returned the cigarette to Severus and leaned back. He brought his bare foot up between Severus legs and nestled his toes against the hot bulge at his crotch, which twitched and grew as he pressed in. Severus shuddered and gasped at the contact, then cast a glance over at the others in the bar. Remus, his own prick stirring, checked as well. No one appeared to have noticed them.

“That will not be the plan for this evening, however,” Remus said in a raspy low voice. He moved his toes in a slow undulation, and Severus ground his hips ever so slightly forward to press in against Remus’s foot. Severus groaned. Remus's agile toes probed at the buttons of Severus's trousers, attempting to pop a few open. “I don’t want to miss anything, so I plan to keep my head this time.” 

Remus had assumed he knew what was going on, that he was in control, but then Severus leaned in and breathed, “I have already acquired a room,” and Remus realized that this night, and his life, had just become far more interesting.


	10. March 25, 1979: Later

Remus could not move. Literally. Severus had knocked him over onto the lumpy, musty bed and sprawled on top of him, matching arm-to-arm, leg-to-leg, cock-to-cock, gripping his wrists and pinning him down. Severus was suffocating him, leaning his full weight onto his chest, and pressing an endless kiss, that Remus could feel down to his toes, onto his lips.

Once Severus decided what he wanted, he didn't go about things half-arsed. He had marched up the rickety stairs of the Hog’s Head to their rented room like he was headed into battle, without looking behind him once to see if Remus had followed.

Remus had followed.

“…can’t…breathe…” Remus sputtered, wrenching his head to the side and gasping for air. He didn’t want any of it to stop, but he was starting to see spots. Severus lifted his head slightly, his sharp hipbones digging into Remus’s gut.

“Shut up, Lupin.” Severus’s mouth was on him again, and he was moving in little squirms that stole Remus’s breath. The uncomfortable friction on his jeans was burning Remus’s aching prick, and he was torn between crying out in passion or in agony.

If only he could suck in enough air to cry out.

Severus pulled back to catch his own breath again, and Remus’s face was suddenly framed by Severus’s long, black hair. He was struck with how similar it was to Sirius’s. He breathed in the angular lines of Severus’s face, his thin eyebrows pulled together in a stubborn V, and his mouth, wide and thin, just barely open. Those black eyes reflected light like a mirror. Remus could see himself in them.

Remus realized something, staring up at him. Severus was rather like Sirius’s sour and bitter twin, he was Sirius without the family and the history and the money and the friends. He was a negative reflection of Sirius. And he wasn’t Sirius, because unlike Sirius, Severus needed him.

Remus craned up and kissed Severus’s lips, suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to make Severus belong to him.

“What do you want to do?” Remus asked.

Although his face remained calm, Severus’s entire body tensed at the question.

“Talking is not high on the list, Lupin,” he replied.

“In that case, I think we should have fewer clothes,” Remus said.

Severus paused, and then nodded. He rolled off Remus and stood. Remus sat up on the bed, removed his jacket and pulled his shirt over his head. Severus stood still, staring at Remus’s bare, thin, scarred chest.

“Do you need my help?” Remus asked Severus, as he started to unbutton his jeans.

Severus scowled at him, and then, to Remus’s great amusement, he turned his back before starting to unbutton his black shirt.

“Don’t I get to see?” asked Remus.

“Sod off.”

Jeans half opened, Remus reclined on his elbows to watch the awkward progress of Severus disrobing. He kept his back turned, carefully unbuttoning every button, including his cuffs, before removing each layer of black fabric. When he got down to removing his vest and exposing the transparent white skin of his back, Remus had to stop himself from leaping up and to run his hands over every inch of skin. His cock, peeping out from his opened flies, twitched. In all their fumblings at school, they had never been naked together.

When Severus appeared ready to start on his trousers, Remus couldn’t stand it anymore, “Let me do that. Please?"

Severus turned around then, his arms crossed and hands tucked under each arm. He looked hard at Remus, and then gave an almost imperceptible nod.

Remus sat up on the edge of the bed and grabbed Severus’s hips, pulling him closer. He made quick work of the button and zip, and then looked up at Severus, who was still hugging his own chest, met his eyes, and then began to ease his trousers and pants down. A thin trail of black hair lead down Severus’s gaunt chest and into his pants, and Remus ran his tongue through it as he pulled down. He felt Severus wobble slightly.

Remus could see the outline of Severus’s prick through his pants, and he allowed his fingers to pull the elastic out and down enough so that his erection popped free. Remus leaned in, inhaled Severus’s sour musk, and then pulled his firm cock into his mouth.

Severus let out a deep moan and Remus felt his shaking hands grip onto his shoulders, hard. Remus sucked him in deep, running his tongue around in little circles up and down the shaft.

The last two weeks of practice with Sirius had really improved his technique, Remus realized. He pulled Severus's foreskin forward with his lips so that the loose skin covered the head of his prick, and then swirled his tongue in between foreskin and head. He enjoyed the different sensations of hard and soft on his tongue, nibbled gently on the soft, wrinkled edge of skin, rolled it between tongue and teeth until Severus's cock was so swollen that the extra skin was taken up completely. Then he shoved his entire head down to take him in as deep as he could.

“Fuck, Lupin,” Severus slurred. “You have to stop.”

Remus released Severus’s cock with a loud, sloppy suck. “Why?”

“Because I want to…I want…you…”

“What?”

“I’ve never…and I…want to…” Severus stuttered.

Remus thought his heart might pound right out of his chest. “You’ve never…?”

“No.”

Oh _Gods_. “You want to now? With me?”

“Yes.”

Remus swallowed hard. “You’re sure?”

Severus rolled his eyes. “Shut the fuck up and get your trousers off, Lupin,” he said, his chest and throat red and flushed. “I’m sure I could manage to find some other wizard who would be able to oblige me if you continue to insist on talking about it so much…” 

Remus stood up and lunged at Severus, silencing him with a deep kiss.

“Lie down, then,” Remus said, “and give me a reason to shut up.”

Severus kicked his trousers off his ankles, and Remus grappled his jeans down and off, and then they were both naked, and there was a short pause as they took in each others’ bodies, both thin and hard and bony, and then Remus grabbed Severus and pulled him down, his body singing with the feel of skin on skin, and he rolled Severus onto his back and straddled him.

“Give me a minute to get prepared,” Remus said, and Severus went completely still, his eyes wide. Remus reached down for his wand and cast the two spells Sirius had taught him, and felt his arse stretch and drip with grease and then he couldn’t wait anymore. He raised himself up and grabbed Severus’s cock, guiding him to his entrance.

“You’ll have to press up as I sit down on you,” Remus said, and Severus let out a sound that was either pleasure or annoyance, and Remus sank down on him and then, _oh fuck_ , Severus was inside him, Severus was fucking him, and Severus had never fucked anyone before.

"You all right?" Remus asked.

Severus grunted in reply.

"Now start to move."

Remus’s cock had softened, but as Severus pressed up into him he was immediately hard again, and was going to last about three seconds. He rode up and down as Severus made a few rapid, awkward thrusts. Remus looked down at Severus, expecting to see his eyes closed in concentration, but instead he was staring up at him with an intense focus. Remus met his eyes and fisted his own prick with rapid strokes.

"Do that more," he said, and Severus pushed in again, deep. Remus felt his balls drawing up, the feeling of completion with Severus inside him too intense. "I'm going to come," he warned, and he tugged hard and then he was coming all over Severus’s belly. As his body was racked with shivers, he _needed_ to kiss Severus, and hold on, and feel him come as well. Remus reached behind Severus’s head and pulled his up into a kiss that he could feel in his gut, and with that kiss Severus started groaning and thrusting and grunting and then he was coming, coming inside him.

Severus did not shout as he came, just let out little grunts and gasps of breath between kisses, his body twitching, every muscle in his body moving under Remus.

They collapsed together, panting and slick with sweat and fluids, wrapped up in each others’ skin.

“So...that’s what that is like,” Remus said finally, after he was able to catch his breath. "Did you...?"

“That was…remarkable,” Severus replied, brushing searching hands over Remus’s back.

“Quite.” Remus smiled and rested his head on Severus’s shoulder, his gaze drifting around the room.

“Hmm,” Severus hummed into Remus’s hair.

Remus’s eyes focused, and then he stared and he leaned up on one elbow. “…erm, Severus?"

"What?" Severus's voice was sleepy.

"Next time? Perhaps we should close the door to the room,” Remus brushed a sweaty lock of hair out of Severus’s face.

Severus followed Remus’s gaze over to the gaping doorway to the corridor. His eyes widened in horror, and for a moment Remus thought he was going to panic and bolt in embarrassment. But then he looked back at Remus, who could not refrain from letting out a shocked laugh, and Remus watched Severus, actually _watched him_ , decide to surrender his trust.

“Indeed.” He turned back to Remus with a slight upturn of his lips. “Next time.”


	11. March 26, 1979

The next night, Remus agreed to meet Sirius at a Muggle dance club called Disco Fever, although the name alone was enough to make Remus doubt the wisdom of this plan. All he really wanted to do was drag Severus back to bed and never leave.

But, he was going to have to deal with Sirius at some stage, so after a short exhausting afternoon shift at the bookshop, he returned to the flat to change into his one pair of flares and the horrible polyester paisley shirt his mum had bought him for his birthday. He waved a bleak farewell to Gideon and Dorcas, who were eating take-away and watching _Ask the Family_ through the static on their crap telly, and headed out.

Disco Fever was just as trashy and cheap as Remus feared, and worse, Sirius was nowhere in sight, just a sea of women in too much make-up, and far too many men in white trousers. He made a beeline to the bar and ordered a pint.

Remus remained crunched in the corner for the next thirty minutes, trying to appear invisible, sipping his beer and chain smoking and scanning the flashing dance floor searching for Sirius’s familiar figure.

“You alone, honey?” A tall blonde woman with perfectly feathered tresses and a flowing purple dress had sidled up next to Remus and leaned against the bar. She moved in a cloud of toxic perfume that practically made Remus gag.

“No, I’m expecting someone,” he said, turning away from her. What the fuck? _Now_ he was being chatted up?

She pressed closer, batting her blue eyelashes. “Looks like that someone is making you wait far too long.” Her voice was reedy and overly solicitous.

“No. It’s all right,” Remus said, and dropped his eyes. _Fucking Sirius_ “He’ll be here soon.”

“He?” she said, aggressive interest in her eyes. Bollocks. “So you won’t mind if I kept you company as well? My name’s Teresa.”

Bloody hell. What was this? After one steaming hot shag, suddenly a badly dressed werewolf was a hot commodity at Disco Fever? Where the fuck was Sirius?

“I don’t want to disappoint you, but you are not really…” he searched for the right words, “…my type.”

“Ah,” the blonde woman leaned back against the bar, an amused look on her face. “Is that so?”

“Sorry.” Remus took a long last drag on his cigarette and then stubbed it out, intending to move out of the perfume haze to a new part of the bar.

The woman grabbed his wrist with a large, strong hand. “I suspect I am just your type, little boy,” she said, and pulled his hand down between her legs. “Everyone here is…”

Oh that unbelievable _wanker_! No, he wouldn’t. Sirius had _not_ left him stranded at a transvestite disco club. No. No no no. But oh yes, he had, because that was definitely a rather impressive stiffy “Teresa” was pressing his hand against through her silky frock. Curiosity getting the better of him, Remus cupped his palm to confirm that, yes indeed, she was a he; as his hand moved, Teresa let out a little high-pitched squeal.

“What the fuck is going on over here?”

Remus and Teresa both looked up. Sirius was standing next to them, a look of absolute glee on his face, eyes fixed on Remus’s hand cupping Teresa’s crotch.

Teresa’s face lit up in recognition. “Sirius! Sweetheart!” She released Remus’s hand and turned to Sirius, kissing both his cheeks and squeezing his arse.

“I see you’ve met Teresa, Moony,” said Sirius, with a devilish grin, rubbing his hand up Teresa’s thigh and under her skirt. She slapped his hand back.

“Cheeky boy.” Teresa turned back at Remus. “You were waiting for this little fuck?” she asked, her thin eyebrows arching in surprise.

“Yes,” Remus said with a sigh.

Teresa ran her large hand over Remus’s cheek. “Good luck with that, honey,” she whispered in a baritone just loud enough for Sirius to hear. She winked back at Sirius over her shoulder, and he slapped her bum as she sauntered away to the dance floor.

Sirius turned back to Remus and waggled his eyebrows. “She loves me, deep down,” he said with a grin.

Remus had been preparing a long, wordy speech to Sirius about needing some space, and not wanting to fuck up their friendship again, and his peanut allergy, but that all flew right out the window, and this was suddenly very, very easy.

“I can’t. Sirius. I can’t do this again. I can’t share you with random trannies and every fucking member of the Order and god knows who else. We both know how this ends. I just can’t do it. I need someone who wants only me,” Remus blurted over the droning disco beat, keeping the words, _and his name is Severus Tobias Snape_ , to himself.

Sirius looked shell-shocked, or as if Remus had just punched him in the gut.

“What the sodding fuck...? So that’s how it is, Moony?” Sirius replied, his jaw pulsing. “Well then...." he regained his composure and brought himself up to his full height, "...don’t let me keep you from your search for true love.” He slammed a hand into the bar and turned away.

“Sirius…” A fluttering panic gripped Remus’s chest as he realized what he had said.

“Sod off, Remus,” Sirius said, turning and spitting words into Remus’s face. “Apparently I have random trannies to suck off, and I don’t need a pathetic, cowardly fuck-up weighing me down.”

“Sirius, don’t be an arse…”

But Sirius had walked off after Teresa.

Remus watched him for a few moments, cold fear gripping his heart, before he edged around the club towards the door. Before he walked out, he looked back just in time to see Sirius in the far corner, kneeling in front of Teresa, sucking her huge cock down his throat.

He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw Sirius look his way for just a moment, before the door shut behind him.


	12. March 31, 1970

Remus had kicked Gideon out for the evening, slamming the door in his face as he laughed hysterically, “Severus Snape? Wait, that little Slytherin creep? Remus, at least make up a better lie if you need some time to yourself…”

Not a good start, there.

Severus had arrived at the flat promptly at seven, sheathed in his Great Coat and those big black boots. Remus had tidied up the meagre furnishings, but was still shaky with self-conscious fear as Severus’s dark, critical eyes peered around the sitting room.

They had eaten Remus’s simple supper of bangers and instant mash in relative silence, careful not to touch each other or make any reference their night together. Remus heard himself rambling about funny customers at the bookshop to fill the quiet spaces in their conversation, but Severus did not appear to mind.

In the pause after they finished eating, Remus suggested they walk down the block to the pub. Severus looked relieved.

They walked hard and fast in the cool night air, matching pace perfectly. For the first time since skulking out of Disco Fever, Remus felt that everything was right in the world.

The pub was crowded, so they stood at the bar and sipped their pints like casual mates. Remus wanted to share a fag, but there were far too many neighborhood blokes who might misinterpret (or rather, rightly interpret) that intimacy and rough them up a bit. He'd seen more than one patron run out of the place while to shouts of _chutney ferret_ or _flaming poof_ , and was not eager for the same.

Two local birds, regulars at the pub, sidled up to Remus, giggling.

“Who’s your friend?” asked the shorter one with the gap between her teeth, who was a fixture at the pub, always drinking a shandy. “He looks like a poet.”

Remus gave Severus a glance. With his black turtleneck jumper and black trousers, his long hair curling at his shoulders, he did look like a bit like a stereotypical poet git. He certainly stood out in the crowd of burly, married workingmen from the neighborhood.

“He’s not a poet,” he replied.

Severus was ignoring the women by focusing all his attention on his beer.

“My friend wants to meet him,” said Gap-tooth, pointing behind her. “Her name’s Linda.”

Linda, a slender, red-haired girl with shockingly green eyes, was standing behind Gap-tooth and blushing madly as she peered over at Severus.

Remus watched Severus take one quick glance over at Linda, look away, and then look again, running his intense stare up and down her body with a puzzled frown. Under his probing gaze, her pink cheeks grew an alarming shade of red and she dropped her eyes to the floor with a dizzy-looking smile.

Looking back and forth between Severus and Linda, Remus felt every one of his muscles involuntarily tighten, and a sound almost like a growl start to form in his throat. Surprised, he swallowed away the sensation and sputtered, “You can tell her he’s already seeing someone.”

“Oh.” Gap-tooth deflated a bit and Linda tugged at her arm to retreat. “Well, here is her number, if he changes his mind,” she said, sliding a folded napkin towards Severus. Remus was struck with the urge to bite at her fleshy arm. He was growing warm, as if an electric current was flowing through his skin.

The two women walked away.

Hot and breathless, heedless of the room full of people, Remus grabbed Severus by the arm and whispered, “We need to get out of here right now.”

Severus looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and annoyance. Remus picked up his pint and drained it, then yanked Severus by the arm out of the pub, hoping that no one was paying them any attention.

“What are you in a huff over, Lupin?” asked Severus, shaking his arm free from Remus’s grasp as they walked up the pavement towards Remus’s flat.

“You liked her,” Remus said, still confused himself as to why he was behaving in this manner. “You looked at her.”

“That woman in the pub?” Severus asked, stopping to stare at Remus. “You are having a jealous fit over a strange woman in a pub who approached me and who I ignored completely?”

One part of Remus’s mind agreed with Severus that this was bloody ridiculous, but another part, the part that seemed to be in charge, let out an actual growl.

“It seems that I am,” he snarled, grabbing Severus’s hand and pulling him at a run across the street and into the little overgrown park in the middle of the square.

“Release me, Lupin,” said Severus, trying to shake off his grip as they trundled into the dark bushes, but Remus was not going to let him free this time. He stopped them in the midst of several tall shrubs, spun around, and pulled Severus into a crushing kiss. The first touch of his mouth eased the angry fire in his gut, and the closer he pressed his body against Severus, the calmer his whirling mind became. Severus, after an initial resistance, fell into the wild kiss, opening his mouth wide and running his tongue along Remus’s teeth.

Remus’s fingers got to work hurriedly pulling open the zip of Severus’s trousers, and grabbing hold of his half-hard prick.

“Oh fuck, Lupin, what are you doing?” he whispered, awkwardly trying to back off while pressing into his hand at that same time.

“Making you forget that you were ever at that pub,” Remus said, and he dropped to his knees in the hard soil of the park, and sucked Severus’s cock down his throat.

Severus’s knees almost gave way, and Remus wrapped his arms around him tight to hold him up, nodding up and down on his cock at a frantic pace.

“Remus, you…I’m…slow down…or…fuck…oh fuck…” Severus’s quiet stream of curses fueled Remus’s motion, and he slid his hands over Severus’s arse, pulling his trousers down so that he could knead his soft, bare skin.

Remus sneaked two fingers into the crack of Severus’s arse, found his tight pucker, and applied firm pressure.

Severus shouted, “Fuck!” at full volume, and then he came in thick spurts down Remus’s throat. Remus pulled his bucking hips in close and swallowed it all down, the insane fever that had started in the pub now completely quieted.

They stayed still for several seconds, listening for footsteps or other signs that they had been heard or seen, but there were no sounds other than the normal buzz of the city. Remus finally allowed himself to loosen his grip and let Severus free.

“Idiot wolf,” Severus muttered as he caught his breath and pulled up his trousers. “Next time, prepare a Silencing charm, at least.”

Remus grinned at the assumed _next time_. He stood and ran his fingers along Severus’s lower lip. “I have no idea what that was about.”

“You are a jealous, possessive maniac?” Severus suggested.

“Apparently,” Remus agreed.

Severus leaned up and kissed him, running a cool finger along Remus's jaw. “Good."


	13. April 1, 1979

"Morning, Remus!” Gideon was lounging on the sofa when Remus sneaked out the door of his room late the next morning.

“How was your night, Gideon?” Remus asked, padding across the room in his pyjama bottoms. He was starved, and thirsty, and eager to get back to his bed.

“Dull. Dorcas had to take off on an unexpected assignment,” he said, sitting up. “Owl came late. Hope it didn’t disturb you.”

Remus grinned. He’d been rather too distracted last night to be disturbed by an owl.

“Didn’t notice.” Remus pawed through the fridge looking for something simple to eat or drink.

“How was your date, or whatever the fuck you were up to last night?” Gideon asked. He was fumbling with something under the coffee table.

“All right.”

“Rainbows and pygmy puffs and unicorns and whatnot? Did you see little hearts in his eyes?”

“Yeah, it was just like that, Gideon. How did you guess?” Remus said, shutting the door to the fridge, his arms loaded with snacks.

“Come over here and have a seat,” Gideon suggested. “You’ve got your hands full.”

 _Little does he know how true that is_ , thought Remus. “I was going to tuck myself into bed and eat, actually,” Remus said.

“No, please, there is…something important I have to tell you,” Gideon urged, gesturing for Remus to sit next to him on the sofa.

“Something wrong?” Remus’s heart sped up a notch.

“Just come and sit here.”

Worried, Remus trotted over to the sofa and sat down.

His arse was immediately hit with a wave of sharp shocks and the room was filled with the sound of booming thunder. Remus let out a yelp and hopped up, rubbing his arse. Snacks flew everywhere. “What the fuck?!

“April Fool’s!” Gideon shouted, collapsing in laughter. He picked up a small device that had been sitting on the sofa and handed it to Remus. “That’s a _Zeus’s Hand Shake_ , my friend! One of Zonko’s newest. Delivers a miniature lightning bolt spell to anyone who presses it…and oh my, that was well worth it,” he said with a gleeful shake of his head and a self-satisfied smirk.

“Oh, bloody hell. That hurt, Gideon!” Remus batted at Gideon’s red head. “I completely forgot the date.”

“I was supposed to shake your hand with the thing, but zapping your bum just seemed the way to go,” Gideon added. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up for an hour.” He stood, still giggling. “I’m late to meet Fabian for some Quidditch practice. Care to join?”

“You’ve left your brother waiting just for that?”

“If you’d seen your face when you jumped, mate, you’d understand. Brilliant.” Gideon sniggered again and wrapped himself in his cloak, then grabbed his broom from the rack by the door. “You coming?”

“No, think I’ll pass, thanks. Another day,” Remus replied. He held up the Zeus’s Hand Shake. “Mind if I keep this? I’d like to try it on someone myself.”

“It is all yours. Have fun.” Gideon's laughter echoed down the corridor as he walked out.

Remus triple-checked that the door to the flat was firmly closed and locked. Then he gathered the food and a few drinks, then tiptoed back to his own door, gently pushing it open and easing back inside.

“He’s gone,” he whispered.

Severus’s dark head emerged from the bedclothes. “Did he know I was here?”

“I don’t think so. I believe your twelve different silencing spells did the trick.” Remus sat on the edge of the bed and dropped the pile of food onto the bedside table. “Sustenance,” he said.

“What the hell was going on out there?” Severus asked, reaching for a Fanta and guzzling some down.

“This.” Remus held out the Zeus’s Hand Shake.

“And that is…?”

“…something I think we might be able to make good use of,” Remus said. He held the device in his palm and barely touched it to Severus’s arm.

Severus pulled his arm away in surprise when the tiny bolt of lightning hit him, but it was only a small shock in comparison to the one Remus had experienced, and the sound effects were reduced to a quiet rumble. “What do you think you are doing, Lupin?”

“It’s April Fool’s Day,” he said. “Gideon zapped me with this thing, and now I’m zapping you.” Remus gently pressed the little button to Severus’s shoulder and shocked him again. Severus snarled.

“Stop that!”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Remus said with a smirk. He lunged onto Severus and straddled him hard, giving him little zaps and shocks all over his shoulders and chest. Trapped in the bedclothes, Severus could only shout and struggle. Remus managed to subdue Severus’s battering arms and trap them under his knees. Helpless, Severus was reduced to full-bore cursing.

“You bloody, insane beast! This is not amusing. The moment I get my hands on my wand, you will have to learn how to eat with your toes, you cretin! Wipe that grin off your face and get that sodding torture device away from me immedia…oh, oh…Oh, _Gods_!”

Severus had frozen in mid-curse, his face a shocked mask of desire. When Remus looked down, he realized he had touched the button to Severus’s dark nipple. Remus’s eyes grew wide.

“Ah, like that, do you?” he asked with a smirk.

“No!”

Remus brushed the device over Severus’s other nipple.

“Fuck!”

“Good?”

Severus’s eyes had rolled back in his head and his body had gone limp. He was quiet for a long moment before he said, “Do it again.”

Remus grinned. He leaned down and licked Severus’s nipple, running his tongue around the silky skin, then sat up and brushed a bolt of lightning across the trail of moisture he had left. Severus’s entire body lurched to the dull rumble of thunder.

“Oh gods. Again.”

Remus repeated the procedure on the opposite nipple, to similar approving groans. Under Remus’s arse, Severus’s cock was starting to make its presence known.

Remus leaned down and gently buzzed at one nipple in little blasts while working the other with his tongue, and Severus writhed and moaned beneath him. He worked back and forth, a frenzy of little lightning bolts battering at Severus, his tongue bringing each nipple to a shocked peak.

“I need…oh…I...”

“What do you need, Severus?” Remus asked, letting his lips move against Severus’s skin.

“I need you to let me _move_ ,” he replied, locking eyes with Remus.

His own need building, Remus moved back and let Severus free. As soon as he could release himself from the confining bedclothes, Severus tackled Remus backwards onto the bed, knocking the Zeus’s Hand Shake away, and smothering him in wet, hungry kisses.

“You bastard,” Severus murmured as he moved his lips over Remus’s cheeks and throat, grinding his erection into Remus’s hip.

Remus grappled his hand over to the bedside table to grab his wand. He muttered the first words of the lubrication spell. Severus abruptly stopped kissing him and sat back.

“Wait. Lupin.”

Remus stopped. “What? Don’t you want to…?”

Severus’s dark eyes were glowing with nervous desire. His voice was uncharacteristically halting. “Could…could we try it…this time...the other way round?” Severus asked quietly.

Remus stopped breathing. He thought he knew what Severus meant, hoped he knew, fuck, was exploding with the thought that he might have meant _that_. He attempted to keep his composure, swallowing deep.

“The…other way?” he asked, his voice coming out as an embarrassing squeak.

Severus nodded.

“You mean, you…?”

“If you don’t want…”

“No…I mean…do you…?”

“Lupin,” Severus said, leaning in and biting at the flesh of Remus’s shoulder. “I would not suggest it if I did not.” He sat up and looked in Remus’s eyes. “I wanted it before.”

Remus fell backwards on the bed in a daze. He had only topped with one man, a Muggle with whom he had shared an awkward shag after a few fumbles at a dance club. Then there had been Dorcas, but he hardly counted her. Sirius had never suggested it, and it had never even occured to Remus to ask for it, and he’d never imagined that Severus Snape might ever, ever let himself get fucked. But he wanted…Oh! Oh! Remus thought he might come untouched just thinking about it.

“Lupin?” Severus peered down at him.

Wand still in his hand, Remus tilted himself upright. “All right, then,” was all he could manage to say before he lunged at Severus, knocking him onto his back. Remus muttered the proper spells, pointing his wand at Severus, who shivered with the odd sensations of stretching and moisture that Remus knew well.

Remus sat up on his knees and shimmied out of his pyjama bottoms. He grabbed Severus’s legs, lifting him up so that he could prop his feet onto Remus's shoulders, and then positioning his achingly hard prick at that beautiful dripping arse. “You have to relax and let me in,” he muttered, and Severus swallowed and then let out a long breath and closed his eyes, focusing. Remus dropped his head and pressed in, an inch at a time, watching Severus gasp and clench and relax, his face mirroring every move Remus made. It was only the fascinating distraction of Severus’s changing expressions that kept Remus from coming instantly as his cock sunk slowly into Severus’s warm, tight arse.

When Remus was almost fully sheathed in him, Severus let out a series of fast panting breaths.

“All right?” Remus asked, hardly able to get the words out.

As if in answer, Severus’s cock let go, and he was coming hard, thick spunk dotting his belly and dripping down his chest.

Remus could feel the rolling spasms of Severus’s orgasm squeeze at his cock, and in a moment, he was coming as well, allowing himself a couple of short, sharp thrusts that made Severus groan his name, before his cock sprang free and he collapsed onto Severus’s chest, panting and shaking and spilling the last drops of come onto Severus's thighs.

Severus pulled him into a hard hug, and Remus wrapped his arms around Severus’s thin shoulders in return, and they lay like that for several minutes, just breathing together. When Remus’s mind was willing to comprehend anything besides the feel of Severus hands and skin and sweat, he looked out at the beautiful mid-morning light streaming in the window.

"You survive?" he asked Severus.

"I believe I did better than survive," Severus replied, his voice low.

Remus rolled back to take in the gorgeous day and place a soft kiss on Severus's lips. “Look, the sun is coming in…ahhh!”

As he rolled over, he was hit with an intense shock of lightning that ripped up his spine, his body jerked madly, and the room echoed with sudden, ear-splitting thunder.

“Damn, fucking, bloody, bollocking hell!” Remus screamed, reaching under his hip and retrieving the Zeus’s Hand Shake, which he had landed on with his full body weight. He chucked the device across the room with all his strength. “April Fool’s, my arse!”

From below him, and for the first time in his life, Remus heard the deep, dense, joyful sound of Severus Snape, laughing as hard as he could.


	14. April 11, 1979

There was a familiar fist wrapped around Remus’s cock, tugging and pulling and stroking, and his own hand was curled around another cock, firm and thick and leaking, but damned if Remus didn’t wish he was anywhere but where he was, even while teetering on the edge of orgasm.

Peter had sent an innocent invitation for drinks and card games, and Remus had (stupidly, in retrospect) assumed that he was the only one invited. Ten straight days in bed with Severus had obviously melted his brain. ( _Oh gods, Severus_ , Remus thought, as the firm hand gripping him tugged harder.)

The horror began when first Sirius, then James arrived at Peter’s flat, each paling as they saw Remus, each clearly also under the delusion that they were the only one on the invite list. The air in Peter’s little sitting room grew so heavy with tension, Remus could scarcely lift his arms.

Peter could not possibly have known that the last Remus had seen of Sirius, he was being sucked off by a disco-tramp transvestite, nor could he have known that he and James had been avoiding each other like the poles of a magnet since Remus had stormed out on in him in a cupboard at New Year’s. No, he could not have known that, because fuck if anyone knew where Peter had been all year. He knew nothing. So he had invited them all over for game night and a fun-filled Marauders reunion.

Brilliant.

Peter’s hopeful grin and platters of twiglets, quavers and pork scratchings making it impossible to simply stand up and storm out, they did the only sensible thing left to them.

They all started drinking.

Peter must have sensed something was amiss, because he could not _shut up_ , filling all the tense silences with babbling on about his mother and their two weeks in Blackpool and fooling people by turning into a rat every few days and _isn’t that a laugh, guys!_. Remus smiled and nodded and threw back shot after burning shot of firewhiskey. He laughed at the right moments in Peter’s stories, all the while avoiding the what-the-fuck glances from James and the lust-and-bitterness glares from Sirius by focusing on flipping cards with his wand to keep their game of Queen’s Wand moving.

Sirius was the one to push it too far, of course.

“This game is fucking dull,” he said, with a faint slur. “Isn’t it, Remus?”

“It’s all right,” Remus replied, trying to avoid meeting Sirius’s eyes.

“Trouble is, there is nothing at stake.” Sirius’s eyes were framed in the longest fucking eyelashes in the universe.

“Just play your card, Padfoot,” said James, from where he was reclined against the sofa, sipping an emerald brandy. He had been very quiet all night.

“I was talking to Remus,” Sirius said. “Don’t you think the stakes should be raised, my dear Moony?” he asked, his tone dangerous.

Remus looked away and reached for a handful of twiglets.

“I like Queen’s Wand,” Peter added into the silence, turning a five. “Bugger.”

“I say from now on, the loser provides the winner a handjob,” Sirius said, still looking only at Remus.

“What?” That was Peter, his voice a high-pitched squeak. “No way!”

Sirius did not look at Peter when he said, “Don’t worry Worms, you never win.”

“I might lose,” Peter muttered.

“It’s a game of chance, Sirius,” Remus said. “Any of us could win or lose. No skill is involved.”

“So that raises the stakes, doesn’t it? Could be any of you wankers pulling my nob,” Sirius replied.

There was a long pause. Remus studied the shag carpet.

“I’m in,” said James, sitting up and throwing down his cards. “I’ll deal.”

“We’re _all_ in,” Sirius stated, staring at Remus, and his tone did not allow for argument. James started floating the cards into formation, and air of grim determination filling the room.

Remus poured himself another shot, the warm emptiness of inebriation the only thing shielding him from the wreck of his childhood imploding around him.

They played a round.

Remus lost.

To his horror, Sirius won.

Through his alcoholic haze, Remus knew it was time to leave, but Sirius did not waste a moment, lurching up from where he was reclined on the floor and opening his flies as he strode towards Remus.

“Sirius, you aren’t really…” Peter said, trying in vain to preserve the last moments of his little game night with his mates.

But Sirius had whipped out his half-hard prick and shoved it in Remus’s face.

“Pay up, Moony,” he slurred.

Remus didn’t move.

“Come on, Remus,” James said, his tone cool. Remus suspected he might not be as drunk as everyone else. “You lost. You owe him one.”

Remus remained still. Sirius rubbed his stiffening prick against his cheek.

“He doesn’t know what to do, Jamie,” Sirius said.

James crawled over towards them. “He knows,” he said. “He just needs a reminder.”

James grabbed Sirius’s cock, giving him a few hard strokes, right in Remus’s face.

“Let me out of here, you pricks,” Remus said, rising, but Sirius grabbed him. Remus didn’t try very hard to escape his grasp, as Sirius quickly reached down and cupped the growing bulge in Remus’s trousers, stopping Remus in his tracks with the familiar feel of his hand. Sirius, breathing hard as James continued to stroke him, reached below Remus’s waistband and fisted his cock. Against his will, Remus moaned.

“Guys?” That was Peter, seated on the sofa, eyes bulging from his head as he watched events so quickly devolve.

James stood up then, not releasing Sirius’s prick, and freed his own cock, rubbing against Remus’s hand, and like so many times in their past, Remus didn’t think, just grabbed hold and tugged hard, and James swore like a sailor and pumped his hips. 

They were in a tight circle, arms and cocks tangled and thrashing, their three sets of eyes searching each others expressions for a clue about why this was happening. Over James’s shoulder Remus could see Peter staring at them in silent fascination. Something about Peter’s awed and terrified expression pulled Remus back to himself just enough, even as he felt James’s prick tightening, even as his own release was imminent, that he pulled away with a violent thrash, knocking himself backwards against the wall.

He looked at each one of his friends, his best friends in the world, all staring back at him, and then steadied himself and ran out of the room.

“What the hell, Moony?” James yelled after him. “Can’t finish anything you start anymore?”

Sirius ran after him, catching Remus by the arm just as he reached the door to the flat. “Where do you think you are going?”

“I have to get out of here, Sirius. You should go home too.” Remus pulled his arm free.

“Stop fucking walking out on me, Remus!” yelled Sirius.

“You were the one who walked away last time, as I recall,” Remus said, holding himself up against the wall. “And you wasted about thirty seconds before you had another cock down your throat.”

“Fuck you, Moony.”

Remus closed his eyes, the world swaying. “Yeah, well, fuck you too, Padfoot. Now get out of my way. I need to go and spend the rest of my night shagging Severus Snape into the mattress. Excuse me.”

He shoved past Sirius, who stood speechless, and slammed out of the door.


	15. April 12, 1979

Whether driven by self-loathing, or the impending full moon, or lust, or the desire to give up making any decisions for himself, he didn’t know. But the next night, Remus asked Severus to tie him up.

There was a little flash of fear in Severus’s eyes when Remus told him what he wanted, but that was quickly replaced by his mirror calm and a subtle smirk.

“One night away from me and this is the result?” he said in his cool drawl.

Remus had not, in fact, gone back to Severus the night before, thankfully, as he had spent most of the early morning hours ill and shaking and draped over the toilet.

“Just do it, Severus. Please?” Remus replied from the bed. Severus must have seen Remus’s need, because without any further commentary, he nodded, pointed his wand, and conjured two thin cords that wrapped around Remus’s wrists. Remus spared a moment to think _he has done this part before_ , and then lay back on the bed and spread his arms. The cords wrapped around the bedposts and pulled him down flat.

“My legs as well,” he said, and Severus’s smooth cords pulled him spread eagle on the bed.

They were both still fully dressed, so Severus stalked around the bed like a cat, methodically vanishing each article of Remus’s clothing with little flicks and twists of his wand, until Remus was naked and exposed and helpless on the bed.

Remus almost let out a sob at the knowledge of how much he deserved this comforting humiliation.

Severus did not remove a single article of his own clothing, but kneeled on the bed between Remus’s legs, trailing his wand tip up and down the skin of Remus’s inner thighs. Remus trembled at the ticklish torture, arching his back and closing his eyes.

"Is this what you want, wolf?" Severus asked, his voice pitched low.

"Yes," Remus moaned.

Severus leaned down and dragged his tongue in one slow lick up the shaft of Remus's half-hard cock. "And this?" he asked.

It was just what Remus wanted. He felt completely powerless. "Thought of nothing else since last night," he murmured back. Remus wanted to grab a handful of Severus's hair, but he couldn't move.

“What _did_ you do without me last night?” Severus asked, trailing his wand up onto Remus’s belly, turning little circles in Remus’s soft flesh. Remus was desperate to twitch away, but he couldn’t move. It was sweet agony.

“Nothing you want to hear about,” Remus replied.

Severus leaned in and ran his tongue up Remus’s chest to his neck, probing the indent at the base of his throat with this tongue. His itchy wool jumper rubbed against Remus’s skin and made him groan with the need to _move_. Remus tugged at the bindings holding him.

“I want to hear everything,” Severus murmured, licking up Remus’s neck and ghosting hot breath around his ear. “Where did you go?”

“Why do you care?” Remus’s body was tingling with the thrill of his own powerlessness.

“I want to know what could have possibly been preferable to another night with me,” Severus said, and his lips met Remus’s in a hungry, needy kiss.

“You _really_ don’t want to know, Severus,” Remus said as Severus broke off the kiss. He added a slight hint of end-of-conversation firmness to his voice.

Severus sat up at that, the seductive purr gone from his voice, eyes narrowed. “On the contrary, I do.” His wand tip was drifting aimlessly around Remus’s chest.

Remus met his probing look. “Fine then. I saw some friends,” he said, suddenly regretting putting himself in Severus’s power so completely.

“Which _friends_?” Severus asked, pulling back further, and Remus knew he was in trouble.

“You know which friends, Severus. I only have a few.”

Severus’s expression shut down completely, as if a brick wall had been constructed across his brow.

“I prefer to forget that, Lupin,” he said, his voice icy. The arousal pooling in Remus’s gut moments before evaporated with Severus’s chilly response.

“It was the shittiest night in the world, Severus. Don’t be like this,” Remus said, lifting his head and straining against the bindings.

“This _is_ what I’m like, Lupin. If you do not like it, perhaps I should be on my way.” To Remus’s horror, Severus pulled himself off the bed and reached for his boots, yanking them on.

“Fuck, Severus, look at me! I’m bollock naked and tied up! You can do whatever you want to me right now. Anything! What are you doing?” Remus was ashamed at the desperation in his own voice. He wanted to wrap comforting arms around Severus and murmur _they are all miserable arses, I only thought of you the entire night_ , but he was bound and trapped, and the horror of what had actually happened the night before made the words stick in his throat.

"And why would I want to do anything with someone who continues to consider a gang of bullies his friends?” Severus retorted, grabbing his coat.

“So I have to choose between you and them? Is that what you are saying?”

Severus paused, as if considering for a moment, and then said, “Yes, Lupin, I suppose that is what I am saying.” He turned to the door.

“You cannot leave me like this!” A shiver of terror ran up Remus’s spine as he realized that was exactly what Severus was planning to do.

“I cannot? Watch me."

He spun on his heel and walked out the bedroom door.

"Severus!" Remus shouted, but then the front door slammed shut with horrible finality. 

Remus let his head fall back on the mattress, wishing the thin cords pinching his wrists and ankles could pull harder, cut deeper, hurt more. He wanted it. Hell, he deserved it.


	16. April 14, 1979

Gideon came to collect him from the safe-room at St. Mungo’s the morning after the full moon. Transformation had been particularly difficult for Remus the night before. He had rubbed his back raw against the metal bars during the night, and the exhausted clinic healers had done only a minor patch job on him before sending him out. He was stiff and achy and drained and just wanted to sleep.

Gideon was unusually quiet as they walked to the hospital apparition point, especially as he should still be giving him shit for finding him alone and naked and tied to his bed the previous day.

“What’s the story, Gid?” asked Remus, his voice raspy. He must have been howling all night.

Gideon stopped and looked at Remus. He took a deep breath, then started talking all at once. “I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’ll just start. Right. Your boss, Mr. Billy, or whatever his name is? He was flooing and owling all night.” Remus’s gut twisted. “You were supposed to work yesterday.”

Remus felt his breathing become shallow. “No. I never schedule myself on the Full. That’s not right.”

“Well, he said it was, and he was fucking unpleasant about it too. I think there was some special event, with that Lockhart bloke again, and too many people, and the books were all in boxes in the back that were meant to be out at the event. Well, he was going on and on talking bollocks about you shirking your responsibilities, and then…well…” Gideon couldn’t look at him.

“What?”

“I told him.” Gideon was very pale when he looked at Remus.

“You did what?”

“It just came out. He really pissed me off, and I knew it wasn’t your choice you were not there, and I just…told him. That you’re a werewolf.” He inhaled and exhaled, hard. “Fuck, Remus, I’m so sorry.” He pulled a piece of parchment from his pocket and held it out to Remus. "Then this note arrived this morning.”

Remus was going to be sick. He didn't have to read the note.

“I’m sacked,” he said.

Gideon nodded, grim-faced. “I’ll cover your rent while you find the next job, mate. This was my fault.”

Remus shook his head. “Stop, Gideon. You can’t afford that. Someone else being a bigoted git is not your fault.” He took a deep breath and pulled his fingers through his hair. “Damn! Damn! Damn!” He rubbed his palms against his eyes, hoping to erase the last thirty minutes and find himself waking up again on the cold concrete of the safe-room.

Actually, he wouldn’t mind erasing the last _three days_ and starting all over again. Fuck.

After a walking a few more contrite blocks together, Gideon patted Remus’s shoulder, offered one last apology, and apparated to his shift at the Comet factory.

Remus decided to walk the rest of the way home, hoping to shake off the itch of bitter hopelessness that was crawling in his belly. Instead of calming down though, as he walked each footstep pounded the misery of the last few days into his body and mind, the collapse of his friendships and Gideon’s thoughtlessness and losing Severus and the pain in his back and who the hell would employ him now and how bloody _unfair_ his life was. The pull of the moon still in his blood, he had worked himself up into a rage by the time he reached his flat.

And there, just to make things even more perfect, was James, leaning against the wall in the corridor, waiting for him.

“Moony.” He stood up to greet him.

“What the hell are you doing here, James?” The fire building in Remus’s gut was ready to erupt. He fought back the desire to snarl and snap his teeth. "I'm too knackered to talk."

“We’ve got to work this out, mate,” James said, as Remus brushed past him and waved his wand over the locks.

“Work it out?” Remus repeated. “What do you think we need to work out?” He could smell James’s sweat.

James followed him inside. “Is what you told Sirius true? Are you boffing _Snivellus_?”

Remus couldn’t look at him. “I don’t know anyone named Snivellus, James.”

“Don’t be dense, Moony,” he said.

The bubbling anger burst free. Remus turned around and slammed James against the door, smashing it closed. James’s glasses twisted off his nose and clattered to the floor.

“What the fuck?” James exclaimed, but then Remus had him pinned to the door with his arm against his throat.

“Just admit it. You are here to collect what I owe you, am I right? Because I am such a horrible bastard for not blowing you, and because that is what our friendship has been reduced to? And your future wife be damned,” Remus’s face was inches away, his hot breath and spittle flying in James’s face.

“…I…can’t…breathe…” James struggled, pulling at Remus’s arm.

“So I am going to suck you off now, _Prongs_ , so that we can be finished.” Keeping one arm stiff against James’s chest, he dropped to his knees and ripped open James’s trousers, the button flying across the room. James clawed at Remus’s hand, trying to free himself, but Remus’s was stronger and more determined.

He wrapped his lips around James’s prick, not caring for the scrape of his teeth or the roughness of the zip digging into his balls. Part of Remus wanted to gag, but his desire to settle this with James was greater.

To his amazement, James rapidly grew hard in his mouth, the scratch of his fingers against his arm lessened, and he let out a moan. Remus closed his eyes and let his exhausted mind wander, trying to imagine it was Severus in front of him, groaning and writhing, but James had to ruin his attempted fantasy by speaking. 

“Fuck, Moony. I’ve missed this. You were always so good at cock-sucking,” and Remus was dragged back into the present. This really was why James was here. Fuck.

Remus let his teeth graze him harder, snagging on his crinkled edge of loose foreskin, nipping just a bit too hard. James reflexively hit him in the side of the head and yelped, surprised, and Remus growled and sucked him deeper. With his free hand, he pinched James’s balls, hard. James bucked against him.

“Is this what you do with Snivelly?” James asked, his voice pinched and breathy. “Does he like it rough?”

In reply Remus sucked him painfully hard, scratching his teeth all the way down his shaft, but James seemed to like it, and he pumped his hips three times, shoving his cock down Remus’s throat, and then he was coming, hard. Remus pulled away after the first sour drips touched his tongue, letting of his hot come spill onto his trousers and shoes and the floor. Then he made sure James was looking down at him when he spit the rest onto the floor and wiped his hand across his mouth.

In the last twitches of James’s orgasm, unable to stop himself, Remus leaned in and bit down on the head of James’s cock, drawing blood.

James screamed.

“Explain that one to Lily,” Remus said, releasing his grip and letting James free.

James got his breath back a bit and was staring at his knob. “Look what you’ve done to my bell-end, you fucking wanker!” 

“I think it’s fair payment for how you’ve been acting. There are names for people like you.” 

The violent urges that had boiled in his blood were soothed, but still tingling just below the surface. He turned away and stalked into the sitting room.

James had zipped up and was retrieving his glasses from the floor.

“Fuck you, Moony, I only came over to make up and invite you to the wedding. Lily wanted to be sure we were getting along for the big day,” he said.

Remus was quiet. 

“I’ll owl you the invite, _mate_ ,” James said, then opened the door and walked out, slamming it behind him.

Remus collapsed onto the sofa and didn’t move for hours.


	17. April 24, 1979

The little alley by the Jobcentre would always remind Remus of Severus, he realized, walking down the quiet street with his dole cheque and a few contacts for interviews. The window he had pressed Severus against with that reclaiming kiss was now unceremoniously plastered with posters for a new Muggle film. No evidence remained that the earth had shifted for him, right on that spot. Remus sighed and walked on.

He had not had a word from Severus or Sirius or James or even Peter. Gideon had been avoiding their flat, staying with Dorcas most nights, and when he did come home, the mood between them was brittle and tense. Remus was left alone to wallow in the quiet, miserable realization that he was broke, friendless and unemployable.

Walking home in the drizzle wasn’t helping that feeling. He could Apparate, he supposed, but why hurry? What the hell did he need to be home for?

By the time he was unwarding the door to the flat, he was soaked through and shivering.

The sitting room was dark, even though it was midday. The gloom hanging over the city was thick and grey and cut out the sunlight. Remus used his wand to flip on a lamp.

He almost leapt into the air when he realized that Gideon was already there, sitting on the sofa, silent, staring into nothing.

“Bloody hell, Gid. You scared the shit out of me. What are you doing sitting in the dark?” Remus asked, shaking off his damp cloak.

Gideon turned his usually bright eyes upwards, and Remus was shocked at the empty haze he saw in them.

“She’s dead,” Gideon said.

“What?”

Remus sat down next to him on the sofa.

“He killed her. She’s dead.” The cool monotone in Gideon’s voice was chilling.

“Who is dead? What are you talking about?” Thinking about it later, Remus already knew, but refused to let himself even think her name.

“They dumped her body at the gates of Hogwarts. She was just…lying there…for hours…”

“Gideon…you don’t mean…Dorcas…?” Oh no. Oh fuck.

“Dumbledore told me he thought she didn’t suffer, but that is a load of crap, innit? How could she not have suffered? They were merciful and did it all painless and friendly-like? That’s not bloody likely.”

“Gid…”

“All of her fingers were broken.”

“Try not to…”

“I was going to go with her, but she told me she could take care of it.”

“Gideon, stop…” Remus allowed his arm to wrap around Gideon’s broad shoulders, which had started to shake.

“Fuck, Remus, she’s _dead_!” Gideon yelled, his voice breaking at last. He leaned into Remus’s arms, and Remus pulled him awkwardly closer, feeling each heaving sob wrench from deep in his body. He stroked Gideon’s back and neck and hair, desperate to find some way to comfort him, knowing there was no way. Gideon leaned all his weight into Remus, clinging onto him, rubbing his tears and snot into Remus’s damp jumper. Remus pulled him closer. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“I don’t think I can handle this, Remus,” Gideon sputtered into his shoulder. “Things have been so fucked up lately, with you, with the war, my crap job, my family…I don’t…she was the only thing working out…fuck…”

“It’ll be all right,” said Remus, and his stomach turned at the emptiness of his words.

“I’m so sorry about what I did to you, Remus,” Gideon sobbed.

“Oh please. Stop thinking about that, Gid. That’s nothing.” He was amazed to realize that it really felt like nothing when faced with Death, hovering over their flat, grinning maliciously at them both.

“You are such a good friend to me, Remus. Gods!” Gideon sat up and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

Remus adjusted on the sofa so that he was facing Gideon, keeping one hand over his shoulder and gently touching his hair. “Have you called Fabian? Or Molly? Or your parents? They’ll want to help.”

“I couldn’t,” Gideon said. “I won’t be able to deal with them being upset and sorry for me, Remus.”

Remus nodded. “We’ll wait a bit then.”

He leaned back on the sofa and pulled Gideon back with him, so that Gideon’s head rested on his chest. Remus knew that this physical contact between them should feel strange and awkward, but the curly red head nestled into the crook of his arm and a slower sobbing started, and it was so obviously _right_ for the moment. Remus let Gideon wrap his arms around his chest and squeeze tight.

As he continued to slowly stroke Gideon’s back and hair, Remus’s mind whirled with memories of Dorcas. He could hear her boisterous, life-affirming shouts echoing through the flat, her snorting laugh, see her earthy, voluptuous body, her grim determination at Order meetings. How much she loved Spangles and the quizzes on the telly. He tried not to imagine her lying dead under the flying boars of Hogwarts, but that image was already bound up with all of the others now. He shuddered and pulled Gideon closer.

“Oh Gods, Remus,” Gideon said. Then he leaned up, looked Remus in the eye for a long moment, and then pressed his lips against Remus’s in a soft kiss.

Remus was surprised, and didn’t know how to react, but when Gideon let the kiss go on, he finally responded, kissing him back, opening his lips, hoping he was somehow providing a comfort, or a memory.

Gideon’s mouth tasted of salty tears. Remus did not want to push anything, but he could not stop himself from running his tongue over Gideon’s lips to clean off the bitter sadness he could taste there. Gideon responded, deepening the kiss enough to taste his own tears on Remus’s tongue. The kiss lasted for just a moment more before Gideon broke it off with a few little nips to Remus’s lip. He rested their foreheads together for a moment and sighed deeply.

“Sorry, mate. Sod.”

“Don’t apologize,” Remus replied, and placed a soft kiss on Gideon’s cheek. “We’re both upset.”

“I just want her here now,” Gideon murmured. “I want her here.”

“I know,” said Remus. He brushed Gideon’s hair behind his ear. “I know.”

Gideon shook his head as if to clear it and then sat up. “Why don’t I floo-call Fabian now?” Gideon said, loosening his grip on Remus’s chest. He almost managed a smile.

“I think you should,” Remus said.

Gideon went off to light their small fire, leaving Remus alone on the sofa.

For the first time in weeks, Remus felt that his problems were small and insignificant, and most importantly, surmountable. In the midst of this misery, he was hit with an odd hopefulness.

He stood up to put the kettle on.


	18. May 5, 1979

The funeral was over. Remus was exhausted. He had gladly taken on the role of Gideon’s supportive and protective friend throughout the ordeal, but over a week of comforting and house guests and eating hastily made hors d’oeurves had drained him. The emotional strain of Dorcas’s death was evident in all of the Order members and their friends.

He had seen Sirius, James, and Peter at the funeral, but they had been civil and distant and polite, and avoided Remus for most of the afternoon. Remus was occupied with tending to Gideon, so it was just as well.

Now it was all over, and Remus just wanted to get away, from all of it. He cashed his weekly cheque and told Gideon he would be back in a few days, leaving him in Fabian’s capable hands. He had no particular aim or destination in mind, just picked the quaintest sounding village name on the map, and Apparated nearby.

As soon as he materialized in a freshly tilled field and inhaled the sweet, clean air of the countryside, he felt his battered mind begin to clear. His eyes filled with tears and he was not sure if it was due to the brightness of the new green growth that surrounded him, or the relief of being away, and alone.

In the distance, he could hear music and the chatter of many voices. Striding down the dirt path through the woods in front of him, he followed the sound.

Emerging from the trees, Remus realized the music and voices were coming from a spring festival on the village green.

The grassy triangle was crowded with bustle and fun, booths selling homemade jams and dried flower wreaths, a small brass band taking a break in the shade, a Maypole in the center, waiting for dancers. Adults strolled, kids dashed, older ladies sat together under the trees sipping something that had them rather red-faced. Pub benches were strewn about, and pints of bitter were being passed between friends.

Remus stood back and soaked in the pure joy of the scene, the _life_ in front of him.

A voice in his head, that sounded a bit like either Sirius or Severus, muttered, _Look at these Muggles, acting like cheesy ponces_ , but he shook that thought away with a smile. _Oh shut up, you miserable git,_ he said to the voice, and then he plunged in, needing to be a part of the idyllic scene.

A little procession of children came in along the road, including a tiny-tot May Queen who kept pulling up her skirts to the amusement of the crowd. That was followed by the Maypole dance. Remus sat on a bench with his pint, letting the unexpected sun warm his skin, and the unexpected pleasure of the village soothe him.

After the Maypole dance, the pipe and tabor sounded and a group of Morris Dancers started up. The snide voice in his head threatened to mutter insults again as the motley collection of middle aged, bearded men and ruddy faced, busty women hopped and leaped to the music, bells ringing, but the voice was silenced by the utter bliss on both the faces of the dancers and the villagers watching them.

Life went on.

Later, armed with a fresh pint, Remus wandered the green, and drifted off into the ancient village churchyard. He faced the little rows of decaying gravestones and crouched down to read each one, running his fingers over the dates and names, now almost faded from memory. He thought he might be able to come to an understanding with Death on this lovely day.

He strolled round the back of the church to look at a few larger crypts there, and then he heard a noise.

A giggle? Then a slap? Then a moan?

He peered over the crypts and then pulled a hand to his mouth to stifle a laugh.

“Up for a bit of how’s your father, love?” It was one of the bearded Morris Dancers, his puffy shirt unbuttoned, his round belly hanging loose, his sash fallen around his waist, and his breeches open at the flies, sitting on the soft grass of the churchyard. His ‘love’ was a buxom dancer herself, her blouse already pulled off her shoulders and dangling around her hips, her ample white bosom exposed to the warmth of the sun. Their ribboned hats were discarded, one shoved on top of a gravestone like a two-fingered salute to Death. Remus turned away, his face reddening, but then he couldn’t resist. He peered over again.

The woman responded with a hearty giggle, and threw herself into her lover’s arms, knocking him backwards and flat on the grass, the bells on both of their shoes ringing merrily.

“Get those lovely bristols up here, you lusty thing,” said the man, with such enthusiasm that Remus couldn’t look away, and the giggling woman leaned in and slapped her tits back and forth across the man’s face. He let out a gleeful laugh. “That’s got me all up for some rumpy-pumpy, you naughty wench. I hope you know what you’ve started…”

She seemed to know, as she quickly got to work on the man’s trousers, extricating his red cock from the layers of costuming, and then going up on her knees to slide her bloomers off from beneath her petticoats. She tossed them aside and they draped over the nearest headstone.

“Saucy woman! I swear you're even randier now than the day I married you!” the man exclaimed as she grabbed his cock and sank down on him with a loud chuckle. Remus pinched himself to keep from laughing out loud as the man’s eyes grew wide and he shouted, “That’s it, woman, ride me!”

She hoisted up her skirt and he gave her ample round buttocks a playful slap. "Ooh! A bit of slap and tickle, you bad bad boy!" she said in a sing-song voice. The man laughed, now rather red-faced and sweaty.

Remus realized he was rather red-faced and sweaty himself.

She bounced up and down on his knob, petticoats flying, knockers bobbing in his face until he caught one in his mouth, and then both of them were laughing and kissing and moaning…Remus was conscious that this shouldn't be remotely sexy or attractive to him, but something about the way they threw themselves into each other, the utter joy and abandon they had in being together, in being alive, in knowing that they would be together forever…Remus suddenly had only one thought in his head.

He needed to find Severus.

He downed the last of his bitter before he Apparated.


	19. May 6, 1979

Severus had never been forthcoming about _exactly_ where he lived, but he had let slip the name of the little alley where he theoretically had some sort of room or flat, so Remus waited beneath the street sign, hidden under a Disillusionment spell, all through the night and into the morning. He was too excited to sleep, watching for Severus’s thin, dark shape to appear on the cobbles.

In the late morning, Severus finally emerged from a doorway halfway down the block, wrapped in his Great Coat, stopping to perform a lengthy ritual over the door. Remus pulled himself to his feet and muttered _Finite Incantatum_ , then ran down the block.

“Severus!” he called, footsteps echoing in the quiet street.

Severus pointed his wand at Remus and drew back, and Remus skidded to a stop a few feet from him.

“What are you doing here, Lupin?” Severus’s eyes raked up and down the street. He did not lower his wand.

“Can we go inside?” Remus hadn’t seen Severus for almost a month. He looked tired, and if possible, thinner. Remus wanted to run his fingers along his thin, wide lips.

“No.”

“Do you want your neighbours to hear what I have to say?”

“No, I want you to go away.”

“I won’t, though, and I’m going to start talking in a very loud voice in approximately five seconds.”

Severus glanced up at the darkened windows up and down the street, and Remus knew he would win this one.

“Five minutes, Lupin.” He turned and muttered a long series of charms before the door lock clicked open. Remus followed him into a small stairwell. They climbed up three rickety flights to a plain door. Severus unwarded it and led the way inside.

It was a single room, starkly furnished but clean, except for a terrifyingly cluttered desk and table in the far corner covered in towers of books and potion supplies and two simmering cauldrons. The room smelled of herbs and magic and Severus’s night sweat. There was only one chair, so Remus sat on the edge of the hard mattress, placing his jacket on the floor.

“Your time is running out. Start talking,” Severus said, pulling out the chair, sitting stiffly, and crossing his arms and legs.

Remus smiled. Severus’s frown deepened.

“I don’t really want to talk,” Remus said.

"Then what do you want?" Severus replied.

Remus plunged in. “I want you back. Life is fucking short, Severus, and I don’t know why we are not spending every moment we can together. I don’t give a damn about all the bullshit between you and my friends. Go ahead and hate them. But you don’t hate me, and I don’t hate you.” He paused, but Severus did not respond. He went on. “So, I’m going to stand up and walk over there and kiss you and drag you into bed, so if you need to hex me or shout or run, you only have a few seconds left to do so.”

Severus was frozen, his arms gripped tightly around himself, the frown deeply carved into his face, but he did not move or speak when Remus stood and walked towards him. For Severus, Remus thought, his lack of reaction was practically a declaration.

Remus kneeled in front of Severus’s chair, cupped his cold cheeks in his hands, and kissed him with all the lust and joy he had absorbed in the sunlight on the village green the day before. Severus did not move, or respond at all, keeping his lips firmly closed as Remus’s lips and tongue probed and pried. Finally, Remus broke away with a laugh.

“You stubborn bastard,” he said.

“Have you quite finished slobbering all over me, wolf?” Severus asked, but Remus shook his head.

“Not at all. I told you my plan, and you are still sitting here, so don’t pretend to be all disgusted and put-upon with me.” Remus could see a faint blush was rising from Severus’s collar.

“I do hate your friends,” Severus said, refusing to uncross his arms.

“Fair enough. You know, lately, I’m not too fond of them myself,” Remus replied.

Severus gave Remus a probing and curious look, and Remus did not look away.

Without another word, Severus grabbed the hair at the back of Remus’s head and pulled him into a heated kiss, a kiss with weight and hope, and Remus dragged them, stumbling, to their feet, pulling Severus across the room to the mattress, where they collapsed in a tangled heap.

“See, you understood the plan,” Remus murmured into Severus’s lips.

“I did not miss you, you know,” Severus said.

“I see. Thank you for the information,” Remus replied, as he kissed Severus along his tensed jaw and up to his ear.

“I do not want you to be confused.” Severus’s head arched back to expose his thin throat to Remus’s searching mouth.

“I’m not confused at all anymore, Severus,” Remus said. “I've just had to face Death, and I’ve learned that clears up all the muddiness.” He ran his tongue up Severus’s throat.

“Death does that.”

Remus stopped and looked at Severus, who was staring back at him with unusual focus. “I’m going to take off all of my clothes now,” Remus said. “I suggest you do the same.”

“No. Do it for me,” Severus murmured.

Remus inhaled sharply. His hands started to work at the buttons of Severus’s coat before his mind even knew he was complying. He stripped off layers of grey and black until he reached Severus’s bright white skin, skin he did not realize he was starved for until it was under his hands again, skin he could not stop touching and licking and peeling away more fabric from until Severus was naked and sprawled on the bed. Severus’s cold hands crept up under Remus’s army surplus jumper, tickling his sides and lifting the wool over his head and off.

“I have an idea,” Remus panted, sitting up on his knees to give Severus access to his trouser zip.

“Brilliant, I’m sure.” Severus’s long fingers made quick work of the button and zip, peeling Remus’s trousers down his tensed thighs.

“Not brilliant. More…sticky,” Remus replied, and he leaned off the mattress and pulled a jar out of his jacket pocket. It was jam he had purchased at the village festival the day before. Homemade raspberry jam.

Severus’s eyebrows pulled up in doubt. “Are you hungry for crumpets?”

“No. Well, a bit of crumpet, perhaps,” Remus replied, unscrewing the lid and dipping a finger into the gooey mess of fruit, then running the finger between his lips, licking the sweet treat from his hand. Then he leaned down and kissed Severus, giving him a teasing taste of berries.

Severus licked at his lips. “Are you mad?” he asked.

“I am, mad for jam. Aren’t you?” Remus covered his finger in red jam again and dragged it down the center of Severus’s chest to his navel.

“I detest jam,” Severus said.

“Well then,” Remus said, licking down the path of sweet fruit, “I’ll clean this up.”

Severus’s body arched up at the intense licking, even as he complained, “You will have to clean my sheets after this, Lupin.”

“Naturally.” Another sticky finger circled Severus’s nipples, and Remus’s tongue followed. Severus moaned.

“Turn over,” Remus ordered, and Severus frowned, but complied, and Remus pulled a ribbon of jam down the small of his back, and licked and sucked at it, even as he struggled the rest of the way out of his own trousers.

Jam made its way onto Severus’s thighs, then the white cheeks of his arse, and then, with teasing slowness, into the crack of his arse, Remus’s hands and tongue teasing Severus up onto his knees, spreading his legs apart until his dark pucker was revealed.

Remus placed a jam-covered finger against the sensitive skin of Severus’s hole, and circled it with sticky, tormenting pressure.

“What the fuck are you up to, Lupin…” Severus groaned into the bedclothes just before Remus’s tongue lapped in to lick the raspberry jam off his arsehole. “Oh fuck!” Severus shouted and, encouraged, Remus let his tongue delve deeper, running up and down Severus’s sweet and sticky crack, focusing his probing and swirling tongue on Severus’s opening, pleased with the panting and bucking that resulted.

“Ready to admit you missed me yet?” asked Remus, as his hand slid around Severus’s bony hips to fist his prick.

“Don’t be a git,” Severus panted. “Shut up and get back to it.”

Remus grinned and leaned in, pressing his nose in deep and licking from Severus’s balls up to small of his back, all the while stroking his thickening cock.

“I…did...not…miss…any…,” Severus was sputtering as he grappled his hand off the edge of the mattress and came back up with a tube of KY. Remus sat up and coated his own leaking, gooey prick, amused and aroused by the mix of jam and slippery grease on his cock. He pressed against Severus’s pucker, making him squirm.

“You didn’t miss this at all then, I’m sure,” Remus said, and pushed the tip of his sticky cock past the tight ring of muscle around Severus’s arsehole.

“No,” Severus grunted, pressing back against Remus and pulling him in deeper. “Not at all.”

It had been a while, so they took their time, and Remus was in agony moving so slowly, feeling the tight warmth of Severus both resisting and sheathing him, lifting his eyes to the cracked ceiling as if to feel the sun shining down on his face. Fuck, he was back. He wanted to be outside in a country churchyard so that he could bellow it to the heavens.

Severus grunted and pumped his way through the initial discomfort, and then started into a rhythm, rocking back into Remus as Remus pushed forward into him, the jam gluing them together with each thrust. The juicy sound of their slapping, adhering skin made Remus laugh out loud.

“Sod it, stop laughing and fuck me,” Severus ordered, and Remus laughed at him as well but followed his command, increasing his pace, spooning in over Severus’s back, enjoying the sticky contact of their skin, fisting Severus’s cock in pace with his thrusts.

“I’m…I’m…” Severus groaned, and Remus felt the spill of come over his hand. He stroked Severus to completion and then grabbed his hips and pumped hard, letting go, pulling out and coming all over Severus’s arse, shuddering hard and draping himself over Severus’s arching back.

They were a mess. Remus fell to the side, flat on Severus’s bedspread, panting.

“Well, that was damn fun,” he said, pulling Severus’s limp form over onto his chest and holding him tight. “I think we are getting pretty good at that.”

Severus snorted. “I have never felt more disgusting,” he said, pulling free and collapsing back onto the sticky sheets. “You had better know a spell or two that cleans me up.”

“I do,” Remus replied, thankful again that Sirius had been such a thorough teacher.

“Bloody jam. You idiot,” Severus muttered, but then he flipped over onto Remus, pinning him down, and suffocated him with a long, intense, berry-flavored kiss.

They were quiet for several minutes, their breathing slowing, heart rates returning to normal. Severus slid off Remus and reached for his cigarettes, lit a fag, and passed it to Remus after taking the first drag. Remus passed it back and then propped himself up on one elbow, his other hand running up and down Severus’s ribs.

“So...What have you been doing the past month? I suppose you were on your way somewhere. When I...interrupted.” Remus grinned.

He thought he had learned all of Severus’s expressions, but this was a new one, a wide-eyed look of sudden fear bordering on terror. Before he could be sure, however, the expression passed away, replaced by a dark glare and eyes shielded with that mirror gloss. Severus looked away and let out a terse, “I was. Yes.”

“Do you need to get on your way? Am I keeping you from something?” Remus asked. _Gods,_ he thought, _don’t let him shut down now, not when we are so close._

“I’ve missed it now, but it is of no consequence,” Severus said, still not meeting Remus’s eyes.

“Sorry about that. Hope it wasn’t too important,” Remus said, taking the cigarette and inhaling deep.

“No. I can attend to it tomorrow,” Severus muttered, almost to himself, pulling himself up from the mattress. He looked down at his body, filthy with jam and sweat and come. “I need to clean up. I’m going down the hall to the bath,” he said, rising and wrapping himself in a sheet. He stalked out, not looking back.

Remus stared after him, chilled by the sudden shift in mood. He took a long drag on the cigarette, and closed his eyes.


	20. June 1, 1979

He certainly couldn’t call it a _relationship_. Beyond the fact that he simply had no idea what being in a relationship would really entail, Remus was fairly confident that Severus would never accept such a label, and he wasn’t too sure how he felt about it himself. Besides, as far as he knew people in _relationships_ tended to do things such as go out in public together, or tell their friends they were seeing each other, or appear to know each other if they passed on the street, and none of those elements were a part of the whatever-it-was that he and Severus had together.

So, he couldn’t label it, but who cared about that?

He and Severus had orchestrated time together almost every day in May. Either Gideon was pretending not to notice, or he was still too preoccupied with grief to pay attention, but with Severus’s paranoid protection charms they seemed able to mask their presence wherever they went. They would plan their next rendezvous as they parted, sometimes from one of their flats in the thin grey dawn, sometimes from a pub on a drizzly afternoon, sometimes from a cheap Muggle inn at supper. They avoided any sort of routine. No routine became their routine.

More than once, Remus had waited at their agreed upon meeting place and Severus had never arrived. Remus didn’t ask about it later, and Severus never elaborated. Hours after, inevitably, Remus would receive a curt note by owl, listing the location and time of their next meeting, often that same day. It became part of the routine as well.

Their hours together were focused and intense and raw, all cocks and hands and mouths and halting, obtuse conversation. Remus made sure to laugh at least once whenever they were together, to attempt some balance with Severus’s dry seriousness. They could not get enough of each other, although they would never dare acknowledge that in any way other than the physical intensity between them. When Remus was buried deep inside Severus and they were face-to-face, skin-to-skin, Remus sometimes felt that their minds were actually connected, that every sensation between them was shared completely.

Severus became Remus’s addiction, his daily employment in lieu of looking for work, or healing the rift with his friends, or thinking of Dorcas, or working for the Order, or visiting his mother, or even eating or sleeping properly.

Sometimes it occurred to Remus that he knew almost nothing about Severus, not really. Even though he also knew him completely.

He shouldn’t have been surprised when it all started to fall to pieces.

It was a rare night that they had planned to spend apart, and Remus was startled by a sharp knock on the door. Gideon was spending the evening with his brother, and Remus didn’t see anyone else anymore, apart from at the occasional Order meeting, and those had been few and far-between. His pulse accelerated, and he grabbed his wand and approached the door.

“Who is it?” he called.

There was a noticeably long pause before a familiar voice said, “It’s me, Moony.”

Sirius. Fuck.

Remus unwarded the door and opened it a crack, peering out. Sirius’s grey-blue eyes stared back at him. _Gods, those eyelashes_. It had been a fucking long time since they had been alone together.

Remus opened the door. “Sirius. Come in,” he said.

Sirius had a grim expression and was all business, pushing into the flat and turning quickly to face Remus as he shut the door. His tense, nervous energy flooded the room.

“Are you still buggering Sniv…Snape?” Sirius asked.

Remus breathed deeply to keep his calm. “Great to see you too, mate. Yes, it has been a long time, hasn’t it?” he said, taking a seat on the sofa.

“Moony, it’s important.” Sirius appeared to be in a near panic, a state Remus had never seen him in before. It was disconcerting.

“Sirius, I haven’t seen you for months, not really. I don’t think the first thing I want to do is get into a fight with you,” Remus replied.

Sirius sat down in the chair opposite Remus, tapping his toes in an anxious rhythm. “My brother has joined up with Voldemort, you know,” he blurted. “Regulus. The little shit.” He paused and swallowed hard. “We had a massive row, but there’s nothing to do once you’ve joined. You’re in for life. Not that he wants to get out of it.”

Remus’s mind could only barely keep up with Sirius’s whirling, unbelievable words. He still could hardly believe Sirius was there at all. “Gods, that’s awful. I…I don’t know what to say,” he stuttered, his brain flooded with images of studious, shy Regulus Black, little brother to them all, now a servant of Voldemort.

“I haven’t seen him for months, but we crossed paths on the street two nights ago, and we started in on each other, and one thing lead to another, and…well, now I know,” Sirius continued. Remus was suddenly aware of a faint bruise on Sirius's cheek. “Little cock-sucker, telling me how Mum and Dad are so fucking proud of his fucking commitment to blood purity or some such crap.”

“That’s…awful.” Remus could not think of the next thing to say.

“Moony, here’s the thing,” Sirius said, and his tone dropped as he leaned forward in the chair, staring intently at Remus, “Regulus wasn’t alone. He was walking with…with Snape.”

Remus didn’t let his expression alter, but he swallowed, deeply.

“With Snape?” Remus was pleased that his voice was steady. “Well, of course. They would have been friends at school, I imagine,” he explained, mostly to himself.

“I don’t think they were, actually.”

Remus’s mouth was very dry. He licked his lips.

“Remus, listen to me. I don’t think Regulus is spending time with anyone right now unless they are mixed up with all of that dark shite.” Sirius’s tone was almost pleading. “He’s Severus Snape, Moony. He’s still the greasy twerp who would hex us all as soon as look at us. He’s one of _them_ , Remus.”

Remus shook his head very slightly. He didn’t think he could speak.

“What if he…” Sirius’s voice was hesitant as he went on. “What if he was… _with_ you just to get close to an Order member. You know, like a spy…”

Suddenly, Remus was through listening.

“He’s not,” he said, rising from the sofa. “What are you trying to do, Sirius? Why are you here?”

“I’m trying to help you.”

“Your help isn't necessary.” Remus walked to the door, intending to usher Sirius out.

Sirius stood up and grabbed Remus by the arm, spinning him around. His grip hurt. “Do you _know_ what Snape was doing with my brother two nights ago?”

Two nights ago, Remus thought…they had fucked each other raw in Severus’s flat until four…then Severus had said he needed to go…he never said to where...they had parted for the evening…he'd never even mentioned he knew Regulus...

Remus knew he had been quiet for too long. Sirius nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Maybe you should ask him.”

Remus felt oddly hollow, his mind mercifully glazing over, the grip of Sirius hand on his arm the only distinct sensation he had at the moment. He knew he was staring and silent, and the moment dragged on far too long…

Then, everything went pear-shaped, and Sirius was pulling him closer, and before Remus knew what was happening, Sirius’s mouth was on his in an open, seeking kiss. Remus was too lost to respond much, but he knew he didn’t want to, and the kiss slowly brought him back to himself, bit by bit, the familiar comforting taste of Sirius turning sour. He shoved Sirius away, hard. He could be strong when he needed to be.

“No,” Remus panted, trying to shake off more of the fog of shock, shaking with anger. “If you wanted me to believe you really were trying to help, that was the last thing you should have fucking done.”

Sirius released Remus, and ran a hand through his black hair. “Bollocks. I know,” he murmured. “But I'm not wrong.”

He turned around and let himself out of the flat without looking back.


	21. June 2, 1979

"Did you know Regulus Black? Back at school?” Remus asked casually, the next night. Well, as casually as he could while in the midst of licking the crinkled skin of Severus’s balls, his nose buried in Severus’s coarse body hair, Severus’s thighs pressing into the sides of his head. And as casually as he could when he knew he was risking everything.

Severus, lying on his side facing the opposite end of the bed, his own mouth occupied with Remus’s half-hard cock, tensed slightly, and then said, “Of course. He was in my House.”

“Oh,” Remus replied, running his tongue in swift circles around the swollen head of Severus’s prick, sucking him softly. He didn’t want to have to pry, to upset the fine balance he had with Severus, but he also had been unable to think about fuck all else since Sirius had walked out the night before.

He’d just ask, and Severus would explain, and they could get back to their non-routine.

That was the plan.

“It’s just that I wondered…” Remus started.

“Lupin, I’d prefer that you stop wondering and concentrate,” Severus said from between Remus’s legs. Remus knew the feel of Severus’s body, and he was frightened by what he could read in the hard way Severus’s body had stiffened against him. The edge in Severus’s voice, no hint of humor, did not help.

“So you weren't with him two nights ago…?”

“No talking, Lupin.” Severus’s voice was now unmistakably _mean_. 

Remus refocused on plying his lips over the soft skin of Severus’s cock, putting his nervous energy to work, hoping to close the terrifying distance he could feel in Severus’s body by pulling him closer to the edge of orgasm. Severus was working Remus’s prick with his hand and his mouth, mercilessly stroking and sucking without taking a breath, all business.

Severus pulled at Remus’s thighs and rolled them over, pressing Remus onto his back and pulling himself up onto his knees so that his prick hung heavily in Remus’s face. Severus thrust down Remus’s throat, almost making him gag, and Remus, struggling for control, tried to speak, generating moaning, monkey sounds deep in his throat, needing to catch his breath.

Without warning, Severus pulled up and out, come spurting onto Remus’s neck and chin and chest. It was the least erotic moment they had ever had together.

For a minute, Severus tried to bring Remus to completion as well, but Remus’s erection had flagged, and he extricated himself from under Severus body.

“I’m finished for now, it’s all right,” he said, trying to sound calm. He rolled over for a cigarette, hands shaking.

It was quiet for several minutes as Remus took long drags on his fag, and Severus lay on his back staring at the ceiling.

Finally, Severus spoke. “Who did you talk to?” he asked, and Remus thought he sounded almost scared.

“Sirius told me he saw you with him.” No need to lie.

Severus was silent.

“Regulus is working for Voldemort, you know,” Remus added.

Severus turned his dark eyes on Remus. “You shouldn’t say his name.”

“Who? Regulus or Voldemort?” Remus asked.

“Either of them.”

Severus took the fag from Remus and took a drag, and it was such a normal and natural thing for him to do, Remus felt slightly better.

“Are you wrapped up in that crap, all that blood purity shit, all that terror?” Remus asked, suddenly brave, propping himself up on one elbow.

“I don’t let myself get _wrapped up_ in anything, Lupin,” Severus replied. “But I do explore my options.”

Although he did not like the implications of what Severus had said, Remus was struck with a moment of hope. “Well if that is true, then I have another option for you. Dumbledore has organized a group of us as well. You could come…”

Severus shut him up with a glare. “Who? You and your fucking school _friends_? They would be thrilled to see me. No, Remus, I know who my real friends are.”

“They _would_ be happy to see you. We need everyone we can get! Come with me, Severus.” Remus sat up, his heart racing, this path making sudden, perfect, beautiful sense to him. “You are such a talented wizard, there is so much you could…”

“No. That won’t work.”

Remus couldn’t stop. “Just think about it. When we meet tomorrow, I can introduce you to a few people, no commitment or anything, just for you to consider. Come on, Severus. You’re a fucking half-blood! Don’t let those creeps make you work for them when you are exactly what they all hate.”

Severus looked at Remus, and brought one hand to his hair, letting a brown strand fall through his fingers. He opened his mouth as if to speak, and then closed it again. His hand fell back down to the bed.

Remus continued. “Meet me at the Hog’s Head tomorrow. At midday? Honestly, Severus...Voldemort? Him and his cronies are nothing but a bunch of fucking cowardly murderers.” He spat the word, thinking of Dorcas. “You aren’t like that. Please.”

Severus held his gaze for a long moment, and then, very slowly, he nodded.

Remus grinned and lay down next to Severus, wrapping his arms around him, holding him tight. Severus stubbed out the fag and then pulled Remus close, pressing his face into Remus’s hair, their breathing synchronous, their legs entwined. Remus had never been more hopeful.

But Severus did not appear at the Hog’s Head the next day, and though Remus waited at home all evening, no owl arrived later to reschedule.

Then Remus did not hear anything from him the following day. Or the day after that. Severus did not reply to any of Remus’s owls. No one ever answered when Remus pounded at the door to Severus’s building, and Severus never appeared in the dark, cobblestone alley, even when Remus sat there watching for an entire day and night.

Then it had been a week.

Then it was a long time.


	22. June 30, 1979

"All right. That’s it. Enough moping, mate.”

Two days ago, Gideon had pounced on Remus while he was pretending to read on the sofa, his eyes skimming over the same paragraph. Gideon had been much more his old self recently, Remus noted, only a faint trace of sadness permanently added to his gaze.

“Why would I be moping?” Remus asked. He’d been moping for a month, he just didn’t think anyone had noticed.

Gideon sighed. “Um. Let’s see. You were shagging that Snape bloke, and now you are not.” He gave Remus an understanding look, his eyebrows raised.

Remus felt his cheeks glow red. “You knew?”

“Please, Remus. Give me an ounce of credit. He was in your bed for almost a month.”

“Oh. Well. Yes.” Remus thought he might catch fire, he was so flushed. “But we set charms…”

“I’m an ace at charm-breaking. You know that.”

“Then you are a pervert.”

“True. In fact, on that theme, wait until you see what I have planned for our day away.”

“What day away?”

“The day away that is going to cure you of the moping.” Gideon stood up. “I’m taking you somewhere fun. You need it.” He sighed, and a shadow passed across his expression. “I won’t deny I could do with a bit of a laugh as well.”

Which was how Remus had ended up at Brighton, sitting in the lumpy pebbles, staring out at the endless sea, sunburned and crusted in salt, and still unable to stop obsessing about Severus.

Gideon had done his best, but Remus was just not ready to cheer up. He felt suspended in limbo, unable to move on until Severus turned up again and explained what the fuck was happening. The sun felt warm on his skin, and the sweet wind smelled of the sea, and the rhythmic pounding of the waves was soothing, but the ghostly memory of Severus was affixed to Remus’s side, haunting the peace of the place.

Gideon groaned, cracked open his eyes, and sat up from his blanket, stretching.

“Anyone nearby?” he asked.

Remus peered over his shoulders in both directions, but only the spectre of Severus, hovering at his shoulder, was within shouting distance.

“No.”

“So. Do you know what the Muggles have planned for this place?” Gideon asked with a smirk.

“No.”

“Nudie Beach.” Gideon waggled his eyebrows. “This time next year, everyone here will be starkers." Remus looked at him in disbelief. Gideon lowered his voice, even though no one could hear him. “Want to give it a go?” He was already loosening the drawstring of his swimming trunks.

“Ah-ha. So _this_ is why we are here.” Remus had to grin. He had been waiting all day to find out why Gideon had picked this particular stretch of shoreline.

“That’s right. Strip down while we have a chance.” Without another word, Gideon pulled off his trunks and ran, bollock naked, to the water’s edge, splashing into the icy waves with a yelp and then plunging in, his red head popping up a short distance from shore, his hands waving wildly. Remus was forced to wonder how a nice wolf like him ended up with all these bloody exhibitionist friends.

“It’s fucking cold!” Gideon screamed over the sound of the wind and waves, and Remus could scarcely hear him. He ducked under again, splashing like mad.

Remus didn’t really want to be naked, but he also wanted to humour Gideon, who was being so kind to him, and who was having so much fun. He had a flash of memory of Sirius's manic dash around the Quidditch pitch, and sod it all, he needed a moment of joy like that. Besides, he could almost feel the glare of disapproval from Severus. Taking another look up and down the beach, Remus removed his t-shirt, painfully aware of revealing his scarred skin to the sun. He took a deep breath, locked his fingers under the waistband of his trunks, and pulled them down in one tug.

The warm sea air hit his exposed skin like an embrace. He closed his eyes and focused on the sensation, his cock stiffening in surprise at being caressed by the seductive breeze.

Remus looked out at Gideon, who was swimming parallel to the shore, his long arms arcing through the air. Remus thought he might be finding his own moment of peace out in the water.

Reclined on one elbow, confident in his solitude for the moment, Remus cautiously rubbed his belly, taking one last look in all directions before he let his hand drift down to his prick. The ever-present Severus stood by, scowling, his arms crossed over his chest. Remus closed his eyes.

_Go away, Severus._

Remus stroked his cock and focused on the feel of the sun on his skin, the pebbles under his feet, the lap of water on the shore.

_You left me. So leave me alone._

He worked his hand gently up and down until his soft foreskin was pulled taut and the tip of his prick was leaking. He let himself fall back flat on the blanket the sun baking his skin, the build of his climax pressing at his balls, his mind blissfully free of anything but where he was, and how good it was going to feel to come all over his belly, nothing between him and the open sky.

He gasped and pulled in frantic strokes until the sweet moment of release. His body arched up and come spilled out of him, pooling in his navel and dripping down his hips. He opened his eyes, and for a brief moment he found that Severus's skulking form was gone.

A few minutes later, Gideon ran up the sand, cock and balls bouncing, skin glistening with water, to find Remus sitting, fully clothed, on the blanket.

“You prude," he said, pulling on his trunks. 

Remus only smiled, and lit a fag.


	23. July 20, 1979

In the end, Remus couldn’t _not_ go to James and Lily’s wedding.

Lily sent him a personal invitation in her own familiar, loopy handwriting, and enough time had passed to make the incidents with James seem like they were part of some nightmarish other life that he had led. Besides, they were two of his best friends. Weren’t they?

In the back of his mind, he knew he was also tempted by the prospect of the wedding food. Occasional part-time work for the Order was not paying for more than instant mash and spam fritters most nights. Wedding cake and a buffet were a strong enticement. He’d face almost anything for a plate of real roast beef and endless vol-au-vents. His ribs were becoming frighteningly prominent.

In the very deepest recesses of his mind, Remus knew he thought there was a very slim chance that Severus would be at the wedding. He imagined him, tormented and sneering, lured there by Lily’s personal invitation to her old friend, just like him. If she’d invited him, he would go, Remus thought.

And maybe that possibility, however tiny, was really the only reason he was going.

He wouldn’t think about that one too hard.

So, after the distraction of the July full moon had passed, he spent most of a dole cheque renting a set of formal dress robes, light blue with black trim and a ruffled shirt, persuaded Gideon’s sister into trimming his hair, and bought a small picture frame as a gift.

On the big day, he Apparated to the coordinates on the invitation, arriving near the Potter family’s garden, steeling himself up for a difficult afternoon. He walked towards the entrance. It was five seconds before he realized he was insane to think Severus would ever show his face here.

The first person he saw was Sirius.

He was in a set of tailored black dress robes, looking flushed and responsible, black hair shining, eyes bright, shaking hands at the gate as guests arrived. He was…beautiful.

Remus swallowed and was considering fleeing back down the street when Sirius saw him, met his gaze, and very slightly let his mouth twist into a smile.

Too late.

Mouth dry, Remus walked towards him.

Sirius extended his hand, and Remus did as well. “Moony,” Sirius whispered, and it was the most natural thing in the world to be pulled into his embrace. The hug went on just a moment too long, and Remus heard himself say, “Padfoot, mate, you look good,” in Sirius’s ear.

Sirius replied, “Of course I do, you tosser. I’m glad you came,” and then brushed his lips over Remus’s cheek, sending little shivers of danger through Remus’s body.

Sirius released him, but kept his hands gripped onto his shoulders, his eyes fixed on Remus. “I was fucking well out of line last time I saw you, Moony.”

Remus inhaled sharply. “No, Sirius.” He shook his head. “Actually, you weren’t.”

They stood there for a moment, just staring at each other, and Remus forgave him more with every passing second. Then the next guest was waiting behind Remus and Sirius had to let him go with a casual smile and a pat on the back. “I’ll find you inside.”

‘Inside’ was actually the side garden, where an overwhelming assembly of people Remus knew were mingling and chattering. He grabbed a glass of wine as soon as the first house elf wandered past with a tray, and found a quiet corner to hide in.

The wedding itself was short and simple, the small group of guests standing on the grass as Lily and James, both glowing, eyes only for each other, took their vows. From next to James, Sirius caught Remus’s eye and winked. Remus downed his wine, strangely nervous as James said, “I do,” and looked around for another glass.

The reception was held around a large U of tables behind the house. A patch of grass, spelled to sparkle with glitter, had been left empty for dancing, and a large buffet table, dominated by a no-melt ice sculpture of a Golden Snitch, was set up against the house. Remus slid into a seat next to Alice Tumwater, his NEWT-Level potions partner and one of his favorite people that he never saw anymore.

She kissed his cheek and hugged him tightly, and suddenly Remus didn't regret being there, at least for a moment. He helped himself to another glass of wine as he and Alice reminisced.

The obligatory hug with James was a complete disaster, as James looked about a million miles away, a soppy grin plastered on his face. The only hint that he even knew who he was hugging was when he murmured, “We ended even, didn’t we mate?” in Remus ear, making sure no one was looking, and then pumping his fist and jamming his tongue in and out of his cheek in the universal mime for blowjob. Remus flushed, horrified. 

He didn’t know what to say to that, so he just ignored it and replied, “Congratulations, Jamie. You're a lucky man,” and turned quickly to hug Lily.

When the buffet was opened, Remus was fourth in line, and he stacked his plate high, and gorged himself, sitting by Alice and Frank, downing it all with another glass of wine.

Then the dancing started, and he just wanted to be alone.

He walked around the side of the house away from the crowd to a side staircase and sat, hidden in the shadows. He lit up a cigarette and inhaled, feeling heavy from his food, tired from the wine, and overwhelmed by the crowd and the twisted friendships and the history.

Moments later, Sirius peered around the corner. Seeing Remus, he smiled, and walked towards him.

Remus smiled back. Sirius he could handle.

“Aren’t you going to dance?” Sirius asked, holding out a hand.

“With you?”

Sirius shrugged and held out his hand again.

“Have you gone mad?”

“No. I want to dance,” Sirius said, but Remus did not move. “I see. Maybe I ought to go and find that Teresa? Remember her? _She’d_ dance with me.”

“Your trannie girlfriend? That is a dangerous thing to joke about,” Remus replied, one eyebrow raised.

“Nah,” Sirius said, sitting down next to Remus on the step. “You know…I gave all that up.”

“What? Getting sucked off in transvestite dance clubs?” Remus asked, trying to keep a light tone in his voice.

Sirius grinned his best sheepish, scruffy-charm grin and said, “Yep. Quite a sacrifice.”

“You are a martyr,” Remus replied, knocking his shoulder against Sirius.

“Damn right. So…” Sirius asked the question they had both been thinking. “You seeing anyone now?”

_Day, night, awake, asleep. I see him everywhere._

Remus shook his head. “No. I’m not.”

Sirius looked at him curiously. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

It was quiet for a minute. Remus pulled a long drag from his fag.

“You did that surveillance job for the Order, yeah?” Sirius asked.

Remus nodded. “Pretty dull. Listening in on codes.”

“Hmm.”

The music changed. Jeff Beck. Oh gods, James had selected the music. Sirius sniggered and stood up again, “Fuck it, if we have to listen to this crap, I want to dance, you plonker. Dance with me!” Sirius grabbed Remus’s hand and pulled him to his feet. Remus, swaying from the wine, dropped his cigarette and stamped on it as Sirius pulled him into an awkward ballroom dancing position.

“Sirius, no,” Remus complained, but not very hard. 

“Ready. And. One, two, three. One, two, three,” Sirius instructed, and they waltzed, completely off the beat of _Hi Ho Silver Lining_ , cracking up, Remus stepping on Sirius’s toes every other step. They slowly pulled closer to each other, until Remus could feel his cock stirring at the closeness, and a hard bulge in Sirius’s trousers was pressing into his hip. Sirius’s breath was hot on his neck, and memories of that body writhing over him and in him flooded Remus’s mind.

After weeks of miserable uncertainty and lonely, frustrating wanks, in the end Remus was the one who leaned in and dragged his tongue along Sirius throat, dropped his hand to that perfect arse, grinding into him, and pulling him into a deep, sloppy kiss.

Then the distant music changed, and Genesis really spoiled the mood. Sirius broke the kiss to let out a laugh.

“James and his bloody _shit_ music. Wanker,” he snorted.

Remus shook himself to clear his head, but the blur of wine and arousal continued. “I think we should go and… eat more,” he stuttered, pulling away from Sirius. What the fuck was he doing?

Just then, the clink of glasses signaled the toasts were starting. Sirius looked up, panicked. “That's my cue! I've gotta go!” He straightened his robes, and then adjusted Remus’s lapels and gave him a smacking kiss on the lips. “I have to make a speech! Fuck.”

They ran around the corner and back into the party, running fingers through their hair and pulling on their robes, and trying their best to look like they hadn't been up to anything.


	24. July 20, 1979: Later

Even in his giddy drunken state, Remus was coherent enough to be worried that _someone_ at the wedding had seen Sirius shove him beneath the table, even though it was now dusk, and everyone was pissed. So he crouched there in the semi-darkness for several minutes, hands to himself, his eyes adjusting, waiting for one of the other guests to peep under and ask him what he was doing down there. No one did.

This was officially the worst idea he had ever heard, much less been a part of.

Sirius’s shiny black shoe was gently kicking at him. Remus punched Sirius’s calf with the side of his fist to get him to stop. Someone was going to notice. Sirius kicked once more, then slid his hands under the tablecloth, pulling it protectively over his lap, and slowly hiked up his robes, revealing first his tanned legs, then a shiny pair of gold underpants barely containing his stiff prick. Remus peered around at the scattered forest of legs surrounding him, as if their knees might suddenly sprout eyes, then crawled carefully in between Sirius’s legs, latched his fingers at the elastic waistband, and yanked down.

He regretted not downing one more glass of wine after the toasts. He needed to forget what a bad idea this was.

Sirius’s prick had sprung free, just as thick and hard and perfect as it always had been. Remus ran his hands up Sirius’s inner thighs as he leaned in to drag his tongue up the familiar shaft. Sirius shifted in his chair.

Suddenly Remus lurched back, barely suppressing a shout of surprise. Someone had nudged him in the side of the arse, hard.

A faint, "Shit!” was far too close to Remus’s ear for comfort. He peered backwards over his shoulder.

Someone else was under the table with him.

“Remus?” Curious brown eyes were peering at him.

“Alice?” Remus replied in a whisper. “What…what are you doing down here?”

“I’d ask you the…Oh, Gods!” Alice buried her face in the crook of her arm. She must have caught an eyeful of Sirius’s bare tackle, which he was now fondling slowly while rhythmically kicking at Remus to get him started again.

Remus’s own gaze drifted over to where Alice was crouched, only to realize that another set of hands was grappling open the flies of a pair of dress trousers. Alice followed his gaze, then held up a hand to block Remus’s view.

“Frank?” mouthed Remus.

She gave a sheepish grin and a nod of the head. “I’m not nearly drunk enough to deal with this situation,” she whispered.

Remus let out a stifled laugh. “Neither am I.”

She glanced over at the prick bobbing next to Remus’s head again, this time more clinically, her brows drawn together. "Hang on. Is that Sirius?” she asked.

It took them both a moment to realize the implications of what she had said. Their eyes met, both wide with shock, and then Remus almost collapsed in silent laughter.

“Oh, Bollocks!" Alice muttered, hiding her head.

Remus giggled and nodded. "Well spotted! That's his cock too!" 

"Sorry... I just…I recognized…It was only once. Fifth year,” Alice was whispering as explanation. “Well, no, then there was sixth year…”

Remus shook his head, “No need to explain,” he snorted. “He can’t keep the damn thing in his pants.”

At that moment, Sirius’s voice, in a loud hiss, echoed under the table. “What the fuck is going on down there?” He kicked again, harder.

Maybe it was the wine, or the fact that Remus still didn’t really want to be there at all, or the surreal hysteria of the moment, or the kicking, but Remus was suddenly struck with another really bad idea. He gestured to Alice, nodding his head towards Sirius’s prick with a wink, and clearing a path for her to move in.

She shook her head and mouthed, “No, I couldn’t, ” with a grin, but Remus gestured again, and she peeped back over her shoulder at Frank, who had left his trousers open, but whose hands had disappeared back on top of the table.

“Just for a laugh,” Remus mouthed, and he crawled over towards Frank, several seats away, keeping one eye on Alice. She moved in, giving Remus a few should-I-really-do-this glances, then grabbed Sirius’s prick with authority and sucked the head into her mouth. Sirius jumped a little in his chair. Remus grinned, his own prick twitching at the sight.

He stroked at Frank Longbottom’s legs, letting him know someone was there for him, then finished undoing the buttons of his trousers and freeing his cock. He grabbed him and stroked slowly, just getting him started.

Remus could hear Sirius’s voice. Someone was talking to him, out at the party, _while_ Alice was blowing him under the table. Oh fuck. Remus’s erection was suddenly granite hard. He worked Frank’s prick with long, rapid strokes.

The someone else must have walked off, because Sirius’s voice was pitched low again. “Wait just a fucking minute,” he murmured. Alice froze in mid-suck, then released Sirius’s prick and sat back on her heels. “That is Alice Tumwater’s magic tongue, or I’m Snivellus bloody Snape.” In a quick slide off his chair, Sirius materialized under the table as well.

Remus froze, holding Frank’s cock in his hand, and Alice was completely still, a look of gleeful horror on her wide, friendly face. Sirius took in the scene.

“What the hell is going on under here?” he asked.

“It was his idea,” Alice whispered, pointing at Remus. Remus let go of Frank’s prick and put up his hands.

“Guilty,” he mouthed.

Sirius held up his arms in surrender, a look of utter amazement on his face. Then he grinned and said, “All right, but would someone please finish off poor Frank? He’s trying to hold a conversation with old Elphias, and I wondered what the hell was making him so damn sweaty.”

Alice bit her lip and crawled over, taking over Remus’s position between Frank’s legs and sucking him in deep. Sirius and Remus sat in silence, watching. Remus’s cock throbbed. He pressed the palm of his hand against himself and suppressed a groan.

Frank’s hands grabbed at Alice’s hair, and she bobbed up and down at an impressive pace, until it was obvious that he was shooting a load into her mouth. Remus had no idea how he was not coming in his dress robes right along with Frank.

Alice sat back, wiped her mouth, and looked back at Remus and Sirius. “I’d better go back up,” she whispered. “Try not to have too much fun down here.” With a grin, she slid out from under the table on her belly. Remus hoped no one noticed her.

Remus and Sirius looked at each other for a long moment. Remus’s body was suggesting that he tackle Sirius and grind into him right there under the table, but before he gave in to that impulse, Sirius said, “Right then, mate. Who’s next?”

“What?” Remus asked.

“We’re down here. Look at all these unsuspecting knobs and minges.” Sirius pointed at the scattered legs under the table. “So, who shall we do next?” Sirius crawled off down the long U of tables, avoiding knees and toes as he moved.

"Sirius, no, hang on..." Remus adjusted his stiffy and crawled off after him. Apparently, the bad ideas just weren't going to stop this evening.

Sirius had pulled up next to an enormous tree-trunk set of legs that hardly fit under the table, and feet that almost entirely blocked their path.

"You do Hagrid," Sirius mouthed, his eyes bright, his mouth twisted in that tempting grin. He mimed pulling out Hagrid's cock with two hands, and Remus blanched and shook his head madly.

"It must be fucking massive," Sirius continued, his voice filled with awe, eyeing the buttons of Hagrid's loose robes. Remus nodded, lost in the image for a moment, and then their eyes met and they collapsed in a fit of giggles.

"Moving on, please," Remus mouthed, and they crept past Hagrid and several other unidentifiable sets of legs.

"The happy couple!" Sirius whispered, pointing.

Sure enough, Lily's filmy white dress was visible a few chairs down, and next to her were knees covered by the dark blue dress robes James was wearing.

Sirius gave Remus a pleading puppy look. "Oh, Moony, we have to. This is too perfect. Our wedding gift to them both...which one do you want?"

Remus panicked. He didn't think he could fake his way around a flange, especially not with Sirius's expert eyes watching, and there was no chance in Hades that he was going to blow James, ever again. He was trying to phrase a convincing argument to talk Sirius out of the idea, when voices echoed, from above, and suddenly both Lily and James must have stood, because their legs disappeared from under the table.

"Damn!" Sirius murmured, but Remus let out a sigh of relief. Saved by the photographer.

Just down the table was a long pair of legs sheathed in a floor-length, aqua-coloured polyester skirt. "Isn't that Lily's prudish sister?" Sirius asked. "In the pleats?"

Remus nodded. "Can't you hear her?" Indeed, Petunia's judgmental, nasal voice was nattering on to someone up above.

"I've got this one," Sirius said with a grin. "Let's see if I can't get her to shut her gob." He started by running one finger up her skinny thigh, pulling her skirt up inch by inch, and Remus crouched back, sure that she was going to scream out at any moment and they would be caught.

They exchanged a look of surprise when Petunia not only didn't yelp, but reached under the table as if expecting someone and grabbed hold of Sirius's hand.

"What the...?" Sirius sputtered, as Petunia proceeded to hike up her skirt and guide Sirius's hand between her legs, shifting in her seat to spread herself open. She became very quiet as Sirius worked his fingers under her white knickers, and Sirius gave Remus a thumbs-up and mouthed, "I knew I could shut the old girl up."

"Wonder who she thinks you are?" Remus mouthed back.

As if in answer, Petunia leaned down to pick up a dropped napkin and whispered. "James! Is that you? You naughty, dirty _wizard_!" 

Sirius and Remus looked at each other, their faces screwed up in horror. Sirius pulled his hand out of Petunia's damp gusset and whispered, "Fucking hell! Crawl! Go!" They dashed as fast as their hands and knees could carry them, until they were well away from the aqua pleats, in a section of table currently unoccupied.

Remus collapsed onto his back, trying to keep from exploding with shocked laughter, and then Sirius collapsed on top of him, his eyelashes and his sly grin almost breaking Remus's heart. They stayed like that for a few breaths, and then without a word they were locked in a deep kiss, grasping and grappling at each other, grinding their still-hard cocks together, and Remus started to pull at Sirius's robes, and Sirius's hot hands were on Remus's skin, and...

"Excuse me, gentlemen," a kindly voice interrupted.

They broke apart and turned quickly to see where the voice was coming from. Peering under the tablecloth, looking right at them with his twinky eyes, was none other than their old Headmaster.

Remus felt all the blood in his body rush to his face. He couldn't move.

Taking in the scene with a calm smile, Dumbledore simply said, "I believe they now require the Best Man for the photographs." 

To Remus's amazement, Dumbledore winked, and then withdrew his head from under the table without another word.

Remus let out a long breath, and then smacked Sirius in the arm. "Bloody hell! You will be the death of me, you impossible git!" Remus muttered. Sirius gave him wet kiss him on the cheek.

"Now, if they want truly memorable wedding photos, that photograper ought to get himself down here, pronto. Under this table is where the action is." Sirius barked a laugh, and ran his fingers through Remus's hair. "S'pose I ought to go, though."

"Yes, go! Please. Before someone else comes looking for you," Remus said, but he leaned up and kissed Sirius once more before shoving him away. "Hurry, before something worse happens!"

"Hey, don't look so worried, Moony! We've just been caught mid-shag by the great Albus Dumbledore. How could things possibly get any worse?" Sirius grinned, rolled out from under the table, and disappeared from view. Remus collapsed backwards and closed his eyes.

In the days, months, and even years following, Remus thought about Sirius's last words that night, and shivered.


	25. July 22, 1979

They found Fabian first.

The way the two men had fallen in the alley, Fabian’s cloak had draped over the body of his brother, so Gideon was difficult to see until someone went to lift Fabian’s body. Only then did they see the second shock of red hair and his open blue eyes.

Sirius was speaking, telling Remus this, but the words were getting as far as Remus’s eardrums and then turning to gibberish. He couldn’t hear anything now but a white painful hum.

Gideon hadn’t been at home when Remus had stumbled in from the Potter’s wedding, which was odd, but not too troubling. Remus was disappointed that he could not tell him about his adventures under the table, knowing he'd appreciate the laugh.

Remus started to feel a twinge of concern when Gid was not home by midday the next day, so he’d tried to floo-call Fabian, but he was not at home either. It was only after Gideon had been gone for over twenty-four hours without sending word that Remus followed Order protocol and owled Dumbledore, who called in a team to search for him, saying a few comforting words and insisting Remus stay at home, because Gideon was sure to return in the meantime.

Now, three hours later, Sirius, McGonagall, and Dumbledore were sitting here on Gideon’s sofa, softly murmuring some nonsense about Gideon being dead, and not having died in vain, and blah blah blah. Remus couldn’t hear a thing.

It was McGonagall who brought him around, placing her hand on his and squeezing hard, until his bones hurt. He looked into her eyes, moist with tears. In her stern tone, she said, “It looks like they walked into a trap, Remus, set by a group of Death Eaters. Five of their marks were left behind this time." She said this last part with a hint of pride. “It took five of them.”

As he struggled to think of what to say or do, Remus’s gaze settled on Gideon’s half-drunk cup of tea, still sitting on the coffee table from two days before, cold. There was a rushing pounding in his ears, and he was overwhelmed with the desire to stand and pick up the tea cup and rinse it out and put it away, so that it would stop _being there_.

Sirius grabbed his shoulders as he started to rise. “Just sit for a minute, Moony. This is rough, I know, mate. It looks as if Voldemort is recruiting again, and this large group caught them by surprise. It’s a fucking mess, Moony. It’s a mess.”

Remus looked at Sirius, at those _eyelashes_ and that sorrowful expression, an injured puppy, and Remus knew he was waiting for Remus to make everything all right again.

_Voldemort. Recruiting. Five Death Eaters. Tea cup._

He needed to get out. Remus wrenched free of Sirius’s grip as the deep desire to bite raged up in him. “Stop. Talking,” he snarled.

“Remus, just…”

“Get out.”

“He was a good bloke…”

“Get the fuck out of Gideon’s flat! GET OUT!” he screamed at his guests, as loud as his torn vocal cords allowed him, pounding his fists on the sofa.

No one moved.

“Why are you not leaving?” Remus looked from one caring, concerned face to the other, and he heard Gideon's voice saying, _I won’t be able to deal with them being upset and sorry for me, Remus_.

In later years, he would wonder what hundreds of events might have been different if he had just given in right then and curled up in Sirius’s arms. But he didn’t do that, so there was no point in wondering, really.

Instead, Remus stood up and ran for the door, slamming it open and not looking back to see if anyone was following him, running as far and fast as he could, down the stairs, and out the door, and through the grey streets of the city. He ran until the soles of his feet burned, and his chest felt hollow, and he gasped for air. He couldn't stop running. If he stopped, Gideon might really be dead.

He did not know he was going anywhere in particular until he was there, panting and soaked with sweat, staring up at Severus’s building. He started screaming at the grimy walls before he even knew what he was doing.

“Severus Snape! Get the fuck out here, you fucking COWARD! Severus! I will not stop screaming until you come out and face me! I can howl all night, you bloody traitor, you slimy, greasy git. You cannot ignore me this time, Severus!!”

A few windows opened down the alley, and faces peered out to see what the ruckus was about.

“Severus!!…Severus!! I will not stop…!”

The door swung open and Remus was hit with a silencing spell, and his mouth froze in an O, no more sound coming out. He rushed at the dark figure standing in the doorway, knocking Severus’s wand away and shoving him back into the little foyer of the building, the door slamming behind them. Severus scrambled back onto the staircase, his black eyes wild with anger.

“Are you trying to get me killed, you bloody idiot wolf? What the hell do you think you are doing?” Severus hissed, holding himself still and stiff.

Remus had not seen Severus for almost two months, and suddenly standing in his presence, looking at the face and body and being that he had been imagining every day, he was hit with a wave of terror. The feeling stopped him in his tracks, and he couldn’t breathe.

“Tell me you didn’t know,” Remus said, slowly, as Severus’s spell wore off. His voice was hoarse from screaming.

“What are you talking about?” Severus asked. He was wearing a loose black robe and an apron, and his hair was pulled back. He had been working, Remus thought.

“Just…tell me you weren’t there. That you couldn’t have…stopped it.” Remus felt his control slipping. He could smell Severus’s sweat, and the cool scent of whatever potion he had been brewing.

Severus eyes bored into him with frightening intensity.

Remus fell apart under his searing gaze. “Just tell me…please…tell me…tell me it wasn’t…” Choking sobs erupted from deep in his belly, and he grabbed the wall to keep himself from falling over.

Without speaking, Severus strode down the stairs, grabbed Remus’s hand in his cool grasp, and pulled him, stumbling and blind with tears, up the stairs.

Severus pushed through the door to his room, dragging Remus behind him. As soon as the door was closed, he spun around and grabbed Remus up in a crushing embrace, one arm on his back, and his other hand at the back of his neck, pulling him close. Surprised and near collapse, Remus’s arms hung at his sides for several moments and he sagged against Severus before he thought to wind his arms around him and let the wracking sobs pour out of his body.

The storm passed, and Remus let his body go quiet, a slow hand stroking his back.

Severus finally spoke. “Your friend Gideon is dead.”

 _Oh gods_. “How do you know?”

“I’ve been studying a new magic. I saw it. In you.”

“In me?”

“In your mind. It was not difficult.”

Remus pulled his head back to look at Severus. “You saw into my mind?”

Severus ignored the question. “Lupin, I wasn’t involved in his death. I was only told this morning that there had been a murder.”

Remus’s knees shook. “I need to sit.”

He untangled himself from Severus and fell over onto the bed, immersing himself in Severus’s scent, absolutely exhausted from his emotional outburst and his long run and the effort of pretending all of this was not happening. _Oh fuck. Gideon._

The mattress sagged as Severus sat down next to him.

“You can read minds now?” Remus said into the bedclothes, his head throbbing.

“I’m learning.”

“Shouldn’t you keep that a secret?”

Severus was quiet for a long time. “I’m also learning to block others from seeing into my mind and reading my thoughts.” He touched Remus’s hair. “You should learn as well.”

Remus turned over to look at Severus. “Why?”

“Because no one can ever find out about this.” Severus leaned down and touched his lips to Remus’s, gently at first, and then deepening the kiss until he was pressing Remus back into the mattress and overwhelming him with his focus and intensity and need. The kiss exploded in Remus, and obliterated their last months apart, and he didn't care any more about the danger or the confusion. He just wanted _this_.

“Fuck, Severus. Where have you been? Why didn’t you contact me?” Remus asked when Severus moved down his body, sucking and licking his neck and collarbones.

“Too dangerous.”

“And now that I have run screaming to you thinking you might be a murderer, you want me back?”

Severus met Remus’s questioning gaze. “I didn’t ever _not_ want you back.” It was as close to a declaration as he had ever made. Remus’s heart accelerated.

“I’m a mess, Severus. I can’t even think. I shouldn’t be doing this right now,” Remus said, wriggling his shoulders to help Severus pull off his shirt.

“Neither should I,” Severus replied, and kissed him again.

They took it slowly this time, and each movement of their bodies seemed to have a weight, a gravity to it that was new, that had never been between them before, the touch of their skin and hands and mouths and cocks heavy with meaning. A small part of Remus's mind knew that his intensity was fueled by grief and pain, but that only made him want to press closer, grip harder, not let go. The room was filled with grunts and moans and the tangy smell of their sweat. When Severus lay back, and opened himself for Remus, Remus practically fell into him.

“Are you in my mind now?” Remus gasped, once he was deep inside Severus, thrusting and pounding and trying to get in, become a permanent part of him. Severus was arching beneath him, slick with perspiration, his eyes were focused again with that probing intensity.

Severus gave a subtle nod without breaking eye contact. Remus groaned.

"What do you see?" Remus asked.

Severus shook his head, but kept his eyes fixed, and then, for the first time, Remus could _feel_ the connection, like a soft hand reaching into his mind. A stream of images poured out of him in haphazard disarray: Sirius pulling him up for a waltz, James's angry cock in his mouth, Gideon smiling, running naked at the beach, Severus, looking up at him from a dark booth at the Hog's Head, Severus, pressing him into the mattress with his kisses, Severus, his face a mask of desire, coming all over his belly. Over it all though, he felt Severus digging into the fresh pain of losing Gideon, his rage and denial and terror, his desire to hurt and bite and wound, and Remus couldn't stop him from seeing it. He didn't want to.

Severus was _in him_ , learning him, while he was in Severus, making him his, and it was too much. Remus cascaded over the edge, hard, his climax ripping through his exhausted body. He collapsed down onto Severus's moist skin, his chest tight, and started to sob again.

They lay in a messy tangle until Remus's sobs subsided and Severus's breathing had returned to normal.

Severus spoke very quietly. "You want revenge. For Gideon. "

Until that moment, Remus had not been sure what he wanted.

"Yes."

They stayed quiet, and Severus stroked Remus's hair.

"Look at me," he finally said, with a firm resolve in his voice, and Remus met his gaze once more.

An image appeared in Remus's mind, a face, one he knew well, so familiar, but also subtly different. He gasped.

"Is that who...?"

"That is all I can give you," Severus said, breaking the connection between them, and rising from the bed. "I need to work." He pulled on his robe and lit one candle, sitting down at his table and picking up a silver chopping knife. "Don't ask me for more." He grabbed a handful of herbs and started chopping them into tiny, even pieces. 

Remus curled on the bed and watched him work, his mind spinning.

The face Severus had shown him, so like Sirius, but so different, was Regulus.

Regulus.


	26. August 27, 1979

Even in his current predicament, Remus took a moment to marvel at how much Regulus could look like Sirius, even down to the curl of his eyelashes, yet be so completely unlike his older brother. Where Sirius was eyebrow waggling, bollocks-out fun, Regulus was nail-biting, crooked-sneer disdain. Where Sirius was light-hearted lark, Regulus was angst-ridden brooding.

When they were twelve and Regulus eleven, he had pestered them until they had ganged up on him and locked him, screaming, into the dark objects cupboard at the Black family home, a musty, windowless room filled with terror and maiming and mystery. When they let Regulus emerge after two long hours, he had said with a cocky sneer that it had been the best two hours of his life.

Remus was picturing that stubborn, eleven-year-old Regulus now, even though the older version was glaring at him with those replicas of Sirius’s eyes, Sirius’s except for the deep crevasse of worry or disgust etched between his brows.

Regulus’s wand was pointed to Remus’s throat.

“Yeah, you found me,” Regulus said, his voice low. “Now what?”

Remus was bound tight against the trunk of a large elm, his arms wrenched backwards by the vines holding his wrists, his legs strapped down at knee and ankle. His wand was resting on the grass at his feet, out of reach.

He’d been an idiot to think the Black country estate would not be well-warded. It had taken him so long to discover its location without alerting Sirius to his search that when he had found it at last, he had rushed off without a plan. The tree had grabbed him as he sneaked towards the house. He’d been struggling against the bindings for thirty minutes before Regulus had wandered out to see what he had caught. Remus didn’t even care. He just needed to know what had happened to Gideon.

“Tell me what you know about the Prewetts, Regulus.”

“I don’t believe you're in a position to make demands, Remus.”

Regulus was pacing back and forth like a caged animal, his tight black trousers, shiny mane of black hair, and gaudy silver jewelry shockingly out of place in the great outdoors. _I’m at the mercy of a kid in a Def Leppard t-shirt_ , Remus thought, although he knew he should not find any of this funny. 

“Did you kill them?”

“Maybe I did.”

Remus took the snide, defensive answer to mean _No_. It was a relief, really, although he’d never believed Regulus was the murderer. In the month since Gideon’s death, his drive for revenge had become focused, clinical, and cold, but he did not have the appetite to harm Sirius’s little brother. 

“Who killed them?”

Regulus snorted. “Oh, I’ll just tell you that. Certainly. Since you asked.”

“I have ways of finding out.” _I think._ Severus had been teaching him the basics of legilimency, but it was still difficult. He needed to lock Regulus into deep eye contact, and the kid's edgy, twitchy pacing was not giving him the opportunity.

“Ooo. I’m shaking in my boots, you idiot. In case you hadn’t noticed, you are completely helpless. In a few minutes, I’ll take you inside and decide whether to call my father, or the Ministry, or the Dark Lord. But for now, perhaps I should remind you that I can do anything I want to you.” With a flick of the wand and no further warning, Regulus vanished Remus’s clothes.

Remus was shocked at the sudden chill on his skin, and cross with himself for the rush of humiliation he felt, sure that was Regulus’s intention.

Regulus eyes grew round. "Bloody hell. What the fuck happened to you?” Regulus eyed the lattice of scars and fresh wounds covering Remus’s skin. It had been another bad transformation.

Remus was silent, trying again to focus his gaze on Regulus, muttering _Legilimens_ under his breath. Regulus was too distracted though, moving closer and running his fingers along the massive knot of scars on Remus’s chest. His fingernails were painted black, the polish chipped and ugly.

The touch of his fingers tickled and teased at his scarred skin. "Who the fuck did this to you?" 

"No one."

Regulus stared at Remus, his eyes bright with fascination. "You did it to yourself?"

“In a way,” Remus replied, focusing his mind on the misery of transformation, just barely maintaining control of his body. Regulus continued to tease his fingers over the lumpy scars.

Oh gods, Regulus’s touch was feathery and light. Combined with the bindings and the cool outdoor air on his skin, and the fact the kid was an exact replica of Sirius, Remus felt his prick stir.

Regulus backed off and pointed his wand at Remus again.

“You’re a sicko, mate. I didn’t think my brother had any friends like you.” Regulus almost sounded impressed.

 _You have no idea,_ Remus thought.

Regulus reached down, pulled up his trouser leg, and reached into his boot to extract a small, silver dagger. “So, you enjoy being cut?” he asked.

Remus swallowed. The knife he could handle. His flesh was so used to being marked, he hardly flinched at the idea. The silver, however...he tensed as Regulus approached.

“You are not a torturer, Regulus.”

That was the wrong thing to say.

Regulus brandished the knife in front of Remus. “Oh, aren't I?” He positioned the knife at Remus’s collarbone, his face inches from Remus’s. “Are you trying to stall so my stupid dick of a brother has time to rescue you?”

“No." _He doesn't even know I’m here._ To say Remus’s grief and anger over Gideon’s death had strained his relationship with Sirius was an understatement. He had not been able to speak to him for weeks, not really, not when every look Sirius gave him was soothing and comforting and horrible. He did not want to be soothed or calmed. He had been _running_ to Severus's bed every night.

He wanted to be here, risking his life. He didn't care what Regulus did to him, if it meant he could find Gideon's killers.

Regulus pressed the dagger in.

The searing, fiery pain of the silver radiated through every nerve of Remus’s skin. His eyeballs hurt. It felt like his hair was on fire. He let out a howling scream.

Regulus dropped the knife in surprise. “Bastard! Fuck, I didn’t even break the skin, you freak. What the fuck?”

Remus let him head flop forward as the agony subsided. He had broken out in a sticky sweat.

“Hey!” Regulus grabbed Remus by the chin and lifted his head. His other hand came to rest on Remus’s chest. His soft touch of his hand in contrast with the pain of the silver sent another jolt to Remus’s prick. "What is wrong with you?” Regulus asked, stepping back and leaning over to pick up the dagger. His gaze rested on Remus’s half-hard prick. “Oh my god, you’re getting hard! You’re a fucking nob jockey!” Regulus bolted back, dagger in hand. “Getting cut turns you on? Or is it me?” 

Remus tried to shake his head.

"You fucking pansy. Pathetic. At least admit to what gets you off." Regulus moved the knife closer to Remus's skin and Remus instinctively struggled to loosen the bindings that were holding him there. "I suppose that's what you and my brother get up to, eh? Sucking each other while marveling about the magnificent Dumbledore and his mudblood cronies? It's perfectly understandable, your getting a stiffy over me... if you're only used to that twat of a brother of mine, you would be eager to shoot your load over a proper piece of pureblood."

Before Remus knew what was happening, Regulus slashed the knife in a shallow cut through the skin on his pectoral muscle.

The shock of pain was so intense that Remus whited out. When he opened his eyes, a fine line of blood was trickling down his chest, and Regulus had Remus's stiffening cock in his fist.

“You want me to jack you off, don’t you?” 

Remus groaned as his body recovered from the pain and was overtaken by the build of a climax. He was horrified to find that a little part of him wanted Regulus to do just that.

“I want you to tell me who killed Gideon Prewett,” he managed to murmur, in a raspy voice. In the heat of the moment, he was able to lock eyes with Regulus at last, and whisper _Legilimens_. It took only a moment for Remus to see the flash of memory, four hooded, masked figures, and two red heads, running from them, backed into an alley. He caught a moment’s glance of Gideon’s face before he ripped himself out of the memory and out of Regulus’s mind. He couldn’t watch that. Not that.

They had been masked. He couldn’t see them. Regulus probably did not even know who they were.

He was going to fail. He’d never been strong enough for revenge, anyway.

Regulus’s fist was pumping him fast, his silver snake pendant bumping against Remus's skin in hot, burning shocks as he moved. Remus could hardly feel it when he came, his mind was lost in utter pain and defeat. Gideon was dead. He was really dead.

"You like this, you pervert? You like this when my brother does this to you?" Regulus was murmuring, milking the last of the come from Remus's prick.

Regulus stepped back, panting, and when Remus looked up at him, he was surprised by an expression that was almost _embarrassed_ , as if Regulus didn't know he'd had that in him, and didn't like it. He flicked come off his hand and onto the ground. “Shit." Suddenly he looked like his eleven-year-old self again. "What are you really doing here, Remus?” he asked.

Remus exhaled and shook his head. “I don’t know, Regulus.”

“You are more fucked up than any of the wizards following the Dark Lord. You should join us,” he said. “You’d fit right in.”

Regulus flicked his wand and the vines holding Remus to the tree disappeared. Remus collapsed to the ground and grabbed his wand.

“Don’t bother to attack me,” said Regulus, regaining the arrogant posture he'd maintained earlier. “My family has this entire forest booby-trapped. You'll be lucky to get out without being caught again.” Watching the nervous twitch of Regulus’s mouth, Remus suddenly realized that Regulus didn’t want to hurt him, couldn’t bring himself to hurt him, not really. Regulus wanted him to leave.

“You don’t have to do what they say,” Remus said, panting, crouched against the roots of the tree.

Regulus peered down at him with contempt, as though he was an child who has no idea about the way the world works. “Yes. I do,” he said. As he walked off towards the house, he muttered, “Send my love to my brother.”

Remus looked after the kid as he walked off, staggering a little, through the trees. He gathered himself up, conjuring a robe and pulling it over his wrecked body. 

Regulus's words echoed over and over in his mind as he stumbled away. _You should join us._

_You'd fit right in._


	27. August 27, 1979: Later

Remus arrived at Severus’s door still shivering with remembered pain and the emptiness of his failure.

Severus gave him one long look from the doorway and pulled him inside without a word. In silence, he stripped off the flimsy conjured robe, and tended to Remus’s wounds, old and new, applying a healing balm that erased the pain as soon as it touched his skin.

Remus sat still under his ministrations and watched Severus quietly work, knowing he did not deserve of any of this.

When Severus was through, he draped Remus in one of the loose black house robes he used when he was brewing, and pulled him down onto the bed. Remus grabbed Severus close and nestled into the crook of his arm, his head on Severus’s bony shoulder.

He might have slept a little. When he woke, it was to the soft stroking of his hair.

He cleared his raspy throat to let Severus know he was awake.

“I found Regulus today.”

Severus shifted his weight under Remus, attempting to mask the anxiety that jolted through his body. Remus wasn’t fooled, and pulled him closer.

“Did you learn what you had hoped?” Severus asked.

Remus shook his head. “He was there when Gideon was killed, but he doesn’t know anything.”

“He hurt you.”

Remus avoided Severus’s eyes, glad he’d been practicing emptying his mind. Severus did not need to see what had happened with Regulus. Ever. “A little. I was stupid. I got myself trapped.”

"You shouldn't do that.”

Remus smiled into Severus’s shoulder. “Oh, all right. If you say so.”

“This is not humourous, Lupin.”

Remus sighed. “I know.” He propped himself up on his elbows so that he could look down at Severus, his tone serious and businesslike. “I want you to take me with you next time.”

Severus looked up at him with a curious stare. “Take you where?”

“To a meeting.” He did not break eye contact. Let Severus pry in and see just how serious he was.

Severus’s eyes closed down with that mirror sheen. “No.” He pushed Remus away and sat up on the edge of the bed, lighting a fag.

“Why not? Aren’t you lot supposed to be looking for new recruits?”

Severus looked back at Remus in horror. “No,” he said, louder.

“Severus, I’ve spent a month thinking of nothing but cold-blooded, vengeful murder. Today a man cut me and I didn’t even care. Hell, a part of me may have enjoyed it. I’m lying to all of my friends, or maybe I don’t even have any friends left. Fuck it, I’m a slathering hell beast once a month. Even Regulus could see it. What the fuck am I doing fighting against the dark? I am the dark.”

Severus glared through a plume of exhaled smoke. “No.”

“I thought you’d be happy about this.”

“No.”

Remus shook his head, confused. “You don’t want me there with you?”

Severus stood up and paced over to his old chair, crossing his legs and puffing on his cigarette. He’d bought a second chair the last week, which was sitting by the door. Remus had noticed, but not mentioned it.

“I won’t let you come.”

“I’ll follow you.”

Severus let his hard façade crack for a moment. He raised one eyebrow and smirked. “You could try.” He took a long drag.

Remus sagged back on the pillows. “Shit, Severus, what the fuck am I supposed to do? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to believe in anymore. The only thing that makes sense is being here with you.”

Severus rose and walked back towards Remus. He crawled onto the bed and straddled his hips, then leaned in and kissed him, hard.

“You don’t need any of us, you idiot. You are better than all of them combined.” He stubbed out his fag and kissed Remus again.

Remus knew this was a ridiculous lie, but he liked hearing it anyway. “You’re only saying that because I’m the only one currently sprawled in your bed.”

“Perhaps.”

They rolled together into a tangle of limbs. Severus’s warm hands spread open the robe he had draped on Remus, and he let his fingers play over Remus’s still pain-sensitive skin with a light touch. Remus writhed under him, and reached for the buttons at Severus’s collar, popping them open one by one.

“What if I told you I think the same of you,” Remus added, running his tongue through the hollow of Severus’s throat.

“I’d vomit off the edge of the bed,” Severus said.

“Well then, I won’t,” Remus replied.

“I should hope not.”

Remus eased Severus out of his robe, and then slid his fingers into his pants and pulled them down with a firm tug. He did not know how he had managed to go from the agony and misery of Regulus to this peaceful comfort with Severus in a few short hours. The shift was making him dizzy.

Remus suddenly thought of something, and he broke away from their kiss. “You know I’m horribly allergic to silver, don’t you?”

Severus peered up from Remus’s chest. “I assumed. Why?”

“I just wanted to be sure,” he said. “Not everyone knows that.”

“Idiot wolf.” Severus’s licked down Remus’s chest and belly, and then casually sucked his cock into his mouth. Remus almost let out a joyful laugh, but knowing that would only earn him a scowl, he covered his mouth with one hand to stifle the impulse and ran the other through the tangle of Severus’s long hair.

Severus worked his tongue in slow circles around the head of Remus’s cock, until the slit was weeping fluid and Remus was flailing and thrusting on the bed. Severus released his prick with a nibble, then bit his way up Remus scars, nipping at the raised flesh all the way to Remus’s chin.

Severus was in charge today, it seemed. He muttered a few charms, rose up on his knees and positioned Remus’s prick at his arse. Without a word, he sank down on him, taking him all at once, bollocks-deep.

“Oh fuck, Severus, I don't deserve this,” Remus moaned.

“Most likely not,” Severus replied with a smirk. He set up an agonizingly slow rhythm, rising all the way up and sinking back down on Remus’s prick at each thrust. His own erection had flagged, as it sometimes did when he was focused elsewhere, but he had assured Remus more than once that the sensation of being fucked was, for him, its own pleasure. Remus lay back and let him ride him as hard as he wanted.

Severus increased the pace. As they ground together, Remus’s mind slowly released everything that had been broiling up in him: Gideon, Sirius, Regulus, the last month of angry misery and alienation. It all drifted away on the slow churning sea of sensation.

Drops of sweat rolled off Severus’s nose and chin and onto Remus’s cheeks and lips. He licked at the salty drops and his eyes opened into Severus’s focused gaze. As he felt the wave of orgasm sweep up from his balls and into his cock and through his body, he howled, and pulled out and came in gooey spurts all over Severus’s arse and his own belly, letting the spasms and shivers pulse through him while Severus met his lips in a soft, deep kiss.

Gods, he wanted to fuck this man for the rest of his life.

As they rested and quieted in each other’s arms, though, a troubling thought was wending its way through Remus’s mind and would not let go. He brushed Severus’s sweaty hair out of his face and looked at him. “Severus, if you are a part of a group that you find so miserable that you don’t want me involved in any way…what does that mean about you?”

Severus stared at a point on the ceiling for a full minute, the rise and fall of his chest slowing as he caught his breath. 

At last he said, “It means I’m too far in to get out.”

Remus shivered at the cold defeat in Severus's voice and couldn't think of a single thing to say in response. Instead, he cocooned his long arms and legs around him, wishing they could stay there, wrapped together, safe, until they had transformed into something new and could fly away.


	28. October 31, 1979

Remus had never considered himself either a romantic or an optimist, but the last two months he had started to wonder if he was softening up. He spent his days wandering the city or working whatever small jobs he could scrounge, his nights tangled with Severus in his rooms, the occasional task for the Order thrown in for variety. Of course, in order to make it through each day, he had to ignore entire categories of worry, such as how he was going to pay his bills, or what to do about his disintegrating friendships, or where Severus went when he was gone all night and came home tired and sore and silent.

But if he stepped back and blurred his eyes and looked at his life at a squint, things weren’t too bad. Some days, they were almost good.

After Gideon died, Remus had been forced to give up their flat. Gideon had been paying more than half of the rent since April, and Remus had not been eager to live with anyone new, especially in his unstable mental state just after Gid’s murder. He’d moved his few belongings in boxes back to his mother’s house, but he rarely stayed there. He had effectively moved into Severus’s room. They didn’t talk about it, they just let it happen.

The first sign of trouble arrived and tapped at Severus’s windowsill on Halloween morning. The note the owl had bound to its leg was dated four days earlier, and was addressed to Remus.

It was a list of names, written in an unfamiliar, angular hand. _Anton Dolohov, Thomas Mulciber, Angharad Owen, Sarah Selwynn, Regulus Black_. Five names, including Regulus. It was unsigned.

The note made Severus very quiet, and he wouldn’t let Remus touch him, and he left the flat shortly after the note arrived, refusing to tell Remus where he was going.

Remus had learned to leave him alone when he was like that, so he did not follow. He sat staring at the list of names for several hours. He knew what it had to be.

Gideon’s murderers.

In the late afternoon, he took himself out for a long walk. It was a crisp, fall day, bright and cold, and the chill air helped to clear his head. On the way back to Severus’s building, he had the eerie sense that someone was following him, watching him. He held onto his wand under his jacket, and walked quickly, his pulse pounding.

He had just slammed the door of Severus’s small room and leaned back against it to catch his breath when someone knocked at the door.

No one knew he lived here, and Remus was fairly certain no one knew Severus lived here either. His heart was ricocheting against his ribs, and he held his wand out, ready with a hex, as he turned to open the door.

He cracked it open and looked into the corridor, then dropped his wand to his side.

It was Sirius.

He looked like a ghost of himself. His face was pale and the skin around his eyes was red and puffy. Even his hair looked limp and dull, and his expression was bordering on panicked. He looked past Remus into the room.

“Moony, what is this place?”

“Sirius.” Remus peered up and down the corridor to be sure no one else was watching this scene. “Did you follow me here?”

“Don’t turn me away, Moony. I need you.” His voice had none of its usual lilt, just a deep desperation. He leaned against the doorframe, assuring Remus could not close the door. Remus caught a whiff of his breath. Sirius was pissed. He reeked.

“I can’t, Sirius…this isn’t my…”

“My father was found dead this morning, Moony. Dead. The great Orion Black is dead.” He stared into space for a moment, as if by saying it aloud, he had shocked himself into silence. He snapped back to life in a moment. “My idiot brother has been missing for three days. It may all be connected. Everything is going to hell. Don’t make me leave. Fuck.”

Remus opened the door without another thought, horrified.

“Oh gods, Sirius. Come in. What happened?”

Sirius stumbled into the room, his eyes oddly fixed on the mess at the worktable.

“Nobody knows fuck-all.” Sirius was pulling his hands through his hair, too hard. “I hated that bastard, Remus. I hated him.”

“I know.”

“If something has happened to Regulus, it is his own fault, for getting messed up in all that...” he gesticulated in the air as if he could locate the words he needed there. "...stupid wank," Sirius concluded. He was staring down at a pile of parchment on the table.

Remus nodded. He was pained watching Sirius struggle.

“Sirius…?”

“This looks like Regulus’s handwriting,” Sirius muttered.

“What?” Remus asked, but Sirius just went on.

“My mother doesn’t want to see me. She says I cannot even come to the funeral."

"Sirius."

"That’s fine. I don’t even care.”

“Sirius, stop.” Remus touched his shoulder.

Sirius seemed to snap back to himself at the touch. He looked up at Remus. “Is this where you are living?” he asked.

“Sort of.”

Sirius staggered a little and then sat down on the edge of the bed. “You seem better. Than at the funeral.” Remus felt himself flush with embarrassment at the reminder that he had avoided Sirius ever since Gideon’s funeral, months before.

“I’m doing all right.” Remus sat down next to him.

Sirius shook his head and then dropped his head into his hands. “They were horrible people, Remus. But they’re my family.”

“Yeah.” Remus put an arm around Sirius’s shoulders.

Sirius sighed. “Remember the Wimbourne Wasps, Moony?” He leaned into Remus. "We had a laugh then, didn't we? That seems like a lifetime ago.”

Remus nodded, his mind flooded with the memory. “Yeah, it does.”

“I don’t know how I bollocksed that up with you,” he said.

 _You don't?_ “That was a long time ago, Sirius,” Remus added, nervous about the direction their conversation had turned, suddenly aware that Severus could be back at any moment.

Sirius hand moved up to Remus’s cheek. “I need…something…” Then he leaned in and kissed Remus’s lips, a desperate sort of aching kiss, that made Remus want to punch something, it was so unlike the Sirius he knew. He tasted like stale beer and cigarettes.

“That is enough.”

The deep voice echoed from the far corner of the room.

Both Remus and Sirius jumped up from the bed and spun around. Remus knew at the first syllable exactly who was there, but Sirius said, in surprise, “What the fuck…? Snivellus?” and pulled out his wand.

Severus must have returned home while Remus was out, and had been standing unseen in the corner behind the door the entire time, watching and listening. His wand was already pointed at Sirius, steady in his hand.

Sirius looked from Severus to Remus and back again.

“Shit, Severus. Why didn’t you say you were here?” Remus said, his heart racing.

Severus ignored him, focused instead on Sirius.

“This is _my_ flat, Black.”

“What?”

“It’s true, Sirius,” Remus added, his heart in his shoes. Severus was white with rage, and his intense calm was far more frightening than if he had been screaming or cursing.

“Bloody hell, Moony. You’re living here? Are still letting yourself get knobbed by this little prick? What, are you one of _them_ now?”

“Get out, Black, before you get hurt.”

Remus didn’t hesitate. He stepped between the two men and faced Sirius, turning his back to Severus. He took a deep breath. “You should go. Owl me about how I can help with your family. Or if you need anything else. Go now.”

“Remus…”

Remus was surprised to feel Severus’s hands grab at his waist, pulling him back against his chest. Hot breath warmed his neck, and then he gasped as Severus pulled him closer, ran his tongue along his throat, and then bit him, hard enough break the skin, at the juncture of his neck and his shoulder. Sirius watched the entire display with a look of horror.

“Get out, Black,” Severus sneered over Remus’s shoulder, a firm hand resting possessively on Remus's belly.

Sirius gave Remus one more look of utter disgust, and then staggered out the door, banging against the doorframe as he went.

A small part of Remus wanted to run after Sirius, to make it up to him, to try and explain, but he knew he could never explain Severus to him, not ever. He could never explain that, even as fucked up and wrong as it was, Severus had just publicly acknowledged him for the first time, marked him, had fought for him in his way. He could never explain that a far more powerful part of him wanted to stay, and tear Severus’s robe from his lean body and shove him against the door, and suck his cock down his throat, make him writhe, run his teeth along his hipbones, and mark him in return.

Remus couldn’t explain any of that, so he let that other part of himself win. As he ripped at Severus’s robes and dropped to his knees, he could hear Sirius’s footsteps, echoing down the stairwell and out the door.


	29. December 11, 1979

Severus had three tattoos: a small snake on his hip, a thin, solid band of green around his left bicep, and the word “Prince,” in plain script on his ankle. Their existence amused Remus to no end, as they were indicative of a certain vanity in Severus that he never revealed in any other way. Remus liked the snake the most, as licking Severus right there never failed to lead to something worthwhile.

Remus did not even notice when the new one appeared. It must have been there for a while, maybe even months, when he finally noted it, because it was healed, and oddly faint, and very, very small, on his inner left arm. Remus did not think much of it. It was a skull, and Remus was mildly surprised that someone as unique as Severus had selected such a trite, predictable symbol.

Then one day, the tiny tattoo _forced_ Remus to pay attention to it.

It was late morning, and they were lounging in bed, casually fisting each other’s morning glory and exchanging nipping kisses, still half-alseep. It was one of those moments when Remus, if he didn’t think too hard, felt like maybe everything might be all right.

Without warning, Severus hissed and pulled his hand away from Remus’s prick, using it to cradle his left elbow. He bit at his lip and turned away from Remus. “Fuck.”

“What happened? Did I hurt you?” Remus asked, now wide awake. Severus slid his feet off the edge of the bed and sat up, still holding his arm.

“No.” He did not look back at Remus. “I have to go.”

“Now?” Remus asked, mystified.

“Yes.” Severus was pulling on his pants and socks, still noticeably favouring his right arm.

“What is wrong with your arm?” Remus raised himself up and sat on the edge of the bed, watching Severus.

“Nothing.”

“Don’t treat me like an idiot, Severus. Something is wrong with your arm. Let me see.”

Severus paused as he buttoned his robe. Then he extended his left arm and yanked up the sleeve.

The little faint tattoo was now deep black, the edges reddened, as if it was infected, or burning. Now that it was darkened, Remus could see that the tiny skull now had a snake curling and wriggling out of its gaping mouth. It was a symbol Remus knew too well. The Death Eater’s symbol. Voldemort’s symbol.

“You are a Death Eater.” He’d known it, in theory, for a long time, but now it was abruptly real. Horrifyingly real.

“He’s calling me in. I have to go. Now.” Severus resumed his fastidious buttoning.

“Voldemort? That tattoo is his signal?” Remus asked.

“Yes. The Dark Lord. And it is not a _tattoo_.” Severus grabbed his Great Coat and pulled it on over his robe.

“You are at Voldemort’s beck and call? He can summon you anytime, and you drop everything and run to him? I thought you wanted to leave.”

Severus met Remus’s gaze with his chilliest expression. “I never said that.”

Remus stared back, trying to probe in, but Severus was blocking his mind with a steel wall of nothingness. “Don’t go,” Remus tried.

Severus shook his head. “I’d be killed, Lupin.” He was pulling on his big black boots.

Remus felt the blood drain from his face.

“Wait. Stay for a moment. We can work out a way. We'll go to Dumbledore, he’ll know what to do.”

“I’m going, Lupin.” Severus tucked his wand up his sleeve and dragged his fingers through his lank hair.

Remus stood up, naked and chilled, and reached out his hand, and the stakes suddenly stretched up towards the sun like weeds. “Don’t go. For me. We can get you out. Please.”

Severus hesitated for a moment, staring hard at Remus’s hand, then turned and walked out of the flat.

Remus felt as if he had been doused with a bucket of ice water.

He sat back down of the bed and ran his hands through his hair, staggered, trying to understand what had just happened. As was his habit, as soon as he pulled himself together, he started the conversation with Severus in his mind that he wished he had managed to have in reality, a conversation in which he was perfectly calm and logical and _right_ and Severus listened and responded and agreed and fell back into bed with him, ready to flee to the safety of Dumbledore and the Order.

After all, they still hadn't found any sign of Regulus.

By the time he rose to start his day, Remus had worked himself up into an anxious rage. He grabbed a beer from under the table, and downed a long swallow. _How dare he walk out. How dare he imply he was some sort of loyal follower of Voldemort. How dare he…_ He took another swig of beer.

_How dare he assume Remus would just sit back and wait while he could come and go and have secret tattoos, or whatever the fuck that thing was, and see or do Gods only knew what sort of horror._

He laced his knackered plimsolls, pulled on his army surplus jumper and jacket, and took himself for a walk.

Rather than calming him down, Remus found the solitude of his walk provided more time for ranting to himself at each street corner, his tone becoming more and more tense and bitter and confused with every block.

He’d walked all the way to Soho without noticing. Dusk was falling. He allowed himself to feel the pull of the familiar until he was standing at the door that led down to the cellar of The King and Bishop. The gentle throb of music lured him down the stairs. He had not been back to the club since he had been attacked, almost a year before.

Fuck, he didn’t owe Severus one single thing if the bastard couldn’t be bothered to explain where he was going or what he was being asked to do once he was there. 

Remus stomped down the stairs to crush out what he was really worried about, if he was honest for a moment: The fact was he was cold with fear that Severus was being hurt, tortured, even killed. Right then. Or worse. He could think of several things that would be worse. His own loud mental ranting and the blast of music in the club helped to keep those terrors at bay.

He fell into the dark, feeling the loud thrum of the music, downing another beer and then allowing himself to get lost on the dance floor.

Five beers and a few hours of grinding, sweaty dancing later, his jumper and jacket discarded and possibly lost, his mind in a delirious haze, a hand grazed over Remus’s back and a vaguely familiar voice breathed, “Remus?” in his ear.

He turned towards the speaker, a wide-eyed Caradoc Dearborn, one of his fellow Order members, a tall, broad Welshman with a ready smile and crooked teeth. Behind Caradoc, Benjy Fenwick, small, dark-haired, and quiet, was giving Remus an understanding grin. Remus smiled back.

Benjy and Caradoc were the only gay couple that Remus knew; both in their late twenties, they had been together for as long as Remus had known them. No one spoke of it in the Order, but everyone knew. Remus had no idea why they would still frequent a place like The King and Bishop, but here they were.

No one in the Order, apart from Sirius, knew for certain that Remus was queer, but the beer haze lessened Remus’s sting of embarrassment at their discovery. He slung his arm around Caradoc’s shoulder and started to sway with him to the music.

“Mates! I’m bloody well pissed and want to say sod off to every fucking thing,” Remus yelled over the music. “Care to help?”

Caradoc gave him a cautious grin and said, “You appear to be having a fairly good time on your own.”

Remus stuck out his tongue at them both and slurred, “Fuck you. Could be better with company.” He allowed his other hand to drift down Caradoc’s chest and come to rest on his belly.

When Caradoc leaned in to whisper in his ear, Remus could smell firewhiskey, pungent on his breath.

“We didn’t know this about you, Remus.”

Remus smiled, and then kissed Caradoc on the cheek. “I didn’t know this about me either,” he said. Benjy had moved closer with a sly smile on his face, running his finger along the waistband of Remus’s jeans.

Remus caught Caradoc and Benjy exchanging a long glance, and the Caradoc said, “We’re going out by the loo. Would you like to join us?” His breath was hot in Remus’s ear.

The chorus of voices in his head telling him to say _No!_ were silenced by the memory of Severus saying, _I’m going, Lupin,_ and walking out of the flat without looking back. If Remus was not supposed to care what Severus was getting up to, then Severus was not allowed to care what Remus was up to, his frazzled brain reasoned. Caradoc and Benjy escorted him into the quiet, dark corridor leading to the toilets.

Silent couplings were taking place all up and down the hallway, generating a low murmur of suppressed moans that made Remus’s body flood with heat. Benjy wasted no time in loosening Remus’s flies and fisting his stiffening cock with his small hand. Benjy’s dark, sparkling eyes were framed with lashes almost as long as Sirius’s, Remus noticed, before he collapsed back against the wall to keep from teetering over. The world was swaying dangerously, and the feel of a hot hand on his prick was muddling the last functional brain cells he had left.

“Shouldn’t be here,” Remus muttered, but then Caradoc was moving in behind him and the thick bulge of his cock was pressing in against the small of his back, and then Remus decided to stop talking.

“We’d like it best if I fuck your arse while Benjy sucks you off,” Caradoc murmured in Remus’s ear from behind. “If you are interested in that sort of thing.”

Remus would never again be able to attend another Order meeting, it appeared. He was somehow able to form the words, “I’m interested.” Benjy immediately dropped to his knees and eased Remus’s jeans down his thighs, guiding his weeping cock into his mouth and taking him in deeply.

At the same time, the promising bulge at Remus's back turned into the hard, dry skin of Caradoc’s bare erection grinding between his arse cheeks. With a mutter of spells, Remus was open and ready and Caradoc wasted no time, sliding his thick cock into Remus with a firm thrust. Remus gasped at the intensity of his size, the pressure and resistance his body was putting up for a moment, but then Benjy sucked him in so far that the head of his prick was hitting the back of his throat, and Caradoc started to move, and Remus was lost to them both. He could not even distinguish which feeling was which as Caradoc pounded in and Benjy took him deep and the room was rotating upside-down and sideways.

Remus closed his eyes, and allowed himself to imagine what Severus looked like as he came, as he let go of all of that control for a few perfect seconds, his head thrown back and his throat exposed and fragile and his trust complete.

Remus pulled at Benjy’s hair to warn him, but Benjy did not pull away, letting Remus come in thick spurts down his throat. Caradoc pulled out and must have wanked himself to completion, because in a moment Remus felt the warm sticky drip of spunk on his back and arse. 

The three men separated, abruptly alone after their sudden union. After a few long breaths leaning against Remus’s back, Caradoc buckled his trousers and then walked around Remus to offer a hand to Benjy, who accepted and was pulled up into a deep kiss, open-mouthed and wanting. Remus watched them together, two lovers knowing just how to please each other, as he wiped at his gummy back and hauled his jeans back up.

What the fuck was he doing here? Severus might be home and injured, or in pain, or simply wondering where he was. He had to get back there. That was where he was supposed to be.

“You all right, Remus?” Caradoc asked, from within the tight circle of Benjy’s arms.

“Almost,” Remus said, keeping one hand on the wall to stay steady. “I’ll be all right when I get home.”


	30. December 31, 1979

Remus sat in the corner in a deep, plush armchair, visible only because of the plumes of smoke he was exhaling as he nervously chain smoked, hoping that by sinking into the chair far enough he would be almost invisible.

He had decided that _going_ to the Order’s New Year’s Party would be easier than explaining why he _wasn’t_ going. Besides, the atmosphere between him and Severus had been chilly and difficult since Remus had seen the mark on his arm. Severus had been back home in his room that night after Remus returned from The King and Bishop, reading, as if nothing unusual had happened. Remus was startled and guilty and drunk, and so the moment had passed for Remus to ask Severus more about where he had gone, and after that it seemed too late. Days passed, and they never spoke of it again, and the mark on Severus's arm remained dull and dim. Remus knew they had been trying to smooth things over in their own ways these last weeks, but it was obvious they both could use a break. Severus had muttered about needing to tend to something on New Year’s Eve, and Remus had nodded without comment. The invitation from Elphias was tucked in his pocket, unanswered. He would go.

Remus was dreading the party, but he also _wanted_ to go. Fuck, he missed Sirius every day, missed his ability to make Remus feel like he was a someone, like he mattered. He missed listening to his rambling, perverted stories while being strategically touched for emphasis. He missed those eyelashes. Sometimes, when he was on his regular stroll to the jobcentre, he’d imagine James was walking with him, kicking a rock down the pavement, talking shit about Quidditch, and making him laugh. He’d even considered the appeal of a long night of chess with Peter, eating too many crisps and arguing about the most recent episode of Gods and Heroes on the wireless.

Really, he wanted to see them all three years ago. But it wasn’t three years ago.

Remus arrived at the party late, when it was already noisy and crowded and he could sneak in without saying hello to anyone. He was stopped for an awkward, stilted conversation with Caradoc and Benjy by the bedroom where they were all throwing their cloaks. Then Elphias interrupted and shook his hand and welcomed him, offering him a drink, which Remus declined. He’d been off booze since The King and Bishop.

He scanned the room for his friends, but none of them were there.

For a New Year’s celebration, it was a rather subdued affair. So many deaths over the past months meant the party was populated by ghosts, all imagined, but as present as The Grey Lady or Nearly Headless Nick ever were at school. Remus watched them invisibly linger around their people, listening in on conversations. He was aware of Gideon standing at his side, eyeing his fag with longing and elbowing him every time a girl walked by.

When Sirius arrived, a rack of ale in his arms, accompanied by James and Lily, he met Remus’s gaze almost immediately. Remus knew him well enough to see him hesitate for the smallest of moments before he smiled, put down the beer, and walked directly towards him.

Remus wondered if he would ever see Sirius walking through a party and manage to _not_ imagine him naked and hard and fisting himself. Remus smiled until he remembered he was going to have to speak to Sirius in moments, and that he had no idea where to even begin. He ran his fingers over the tiny scar Severus had left on his shoulder when he had bitten him.

Remus let out a long breath, suddenly sure he needed to find a way to make it up with Sirius. He missed him too damn much.

He was steeling himself up for a dramatic scene, but Sirius just plopped down on the arm of the chair and ruffled a hand through Remus’s hair, saying, “If you are attempting to be a mysterious, elusive creature of twisted loyalties, you’d do better to stay away from the holiday parties, you tosser.”

Fucking Sirius.

Remus almost burst into relieved laughter, but he hid it with a sly smirk. “Excellent point. I’ll have to work on that. Thanks, professor,” Remus replied.

Sirius wrapped one arm around Remus’s head, his hand resting over Remus’s forehead, holding him in an awkward grip, and leaned close, his lips brushing over Remus’s ear. “Listen, Moony, I want to try, but I don’t understand it, and I don’t think I can ever hear one word about that…about him. All right?”

Remus nodded. “Yeah. That’s all right.”

Sirius shifted his odd grip on Remus's head and kissed him. It wasn't a passionate kiss, or a possessive kiss, just familiar and deep. It felt like forgiveness. Remus brought his hands up to Sirius's cheeks and let the kiss linger, hoping the soft pressure of lips and the gentle tangle of tongues was somehow the cure.

Sirius let him free and met his eyes for a long moment. “You wanker. Snivellus fucking Snape…bloody unbelievable.”

Remus pressed his lips together and didn’t say a word. 

As the moment passed, Remus glanced around the room. No one seemed to have noticed them.

“So...how are you?” he asked.

Sirius smiled and reclined backwards on the arm of the chair, as if he was planning to stay for a while. He grabbed Remus’s fag and took a long drag. “Oh brilliant. War, you know. What could be better? Violence, pain, missing brothers, dead bastard fathers…what’s not to like, Moony? How are you?”

Maybe, Remus thought, just maybe, they could make this work.


	31. December 31, 1979: Later

Remus unwarded the door and eased it open quietly, on the chance that Severus was asleep inside. 

He had left the New Year’s party well before midnight, sneaking out while most of the guests were distracted with dancing or charades or listening to Daedalus go on and on about the health benefits of Mooncalf milk. The party had been fine, but as the clock ticked away the last hours of this turbulent year, a nagging ache in his gut reminded Remus that he was not where he truly wanted to be. The only person who noticed Remus slip away was Lily, who ran after him into the garden and gave him a warm hug and kiss on the cheek, with a promise to have him by for dinner soon. Then Remus had turned up his collar against the cold, and Apparated to Severus’s flat. 

He felt calm and more at peace than he had for months. Maybe it was due to healing, or at least patching the rift with Sirius, or maybe it was realizing that making up with Sirius had not made him stop thinking about Severus, or maybe it was the promise of a fresh start in the new year, but he walked up to the door of the flat with an odd hopefulness that he had not felt for a very long time. 

Severus was not asleep. He was seated at the work table, writing by the light of several candles, three thick spell casting tomes spread open around him. 

“You are home sooner than I expected,” Severus said, without raising his eyes from his work. 

_Home?_ Remus did not shut the door. “I didn’t know if you would be here. Do you want me to leave?” he asked.

Severus gestured him inside. “No. I must complete this, however,” he replied. “I will be a moment.”

Remus nodded, shut the door, and raised the wards. He removed his jacket and his jumper, and sat down on the bed to watch Severus work. He was hunched over a messy parchment, his quill moving in rapid jerky strokes as he wrote. He’d been biting at the left side of his lip, making the little swollen wound that was always a sign that he had been intensely focused on something. His brows were almost touching, he was pulling them together so hard in concentration. The scratch of the quill, the tap of the inkpot, and the sigh of their breaths were the only sounds in the room for several minutes.

Remus stared at the man in front if him, really stared, filled with hope and guilt and confusion. He knew the curve of that spine, had touched each vertebrae with his tongue. He knew the sharp knuckles of his hands, the ink stained fingers, the ragged fingernails. His own fingerprints were on the lank strands of hair dangling in Severus’s sour face. Severus’s tangy scent, herbs and anise and cigarettes and sweat, permeated the room. Remus inhaled, swimming in the scent.

He didn’t understand, and he was scared as fuck, but the quiet of the moment allowed Remus to feel something he had never allowed himself to feel before, even though it had been true for a long, long time.

He was in love with Severus. Madly. And everything else didn’t really matter.

Severus completed his writing and started cleaning his quill. Remus leaned forward, heart in his throat, and tried to speak. 

“Severus, I need to say…”

Severus raised his hand to silence him, and said, “One moment.” He shuffled some papers on the table, pulled out a torn notice, and handed it to Remus.

“It is a Muggle shop, but I did not think you would mind,” Severus said. 

Remus read the paper. _Help Wanted: Part-Time Book Seller. Ring Colin at Second Story Books to apply_ , followed by a Muggle telephone number. 

Remus looked up at Severus, who was busy closing his books and rolling the parchment. 

“You found this for me?”

“No, I took the position myself and intend to taunt you with it now,” he said in his dead-pan, and then raised both eyebrows. “Of course it is for you, Lupin.”

Remus swallowed, trying to stay calm, but the rushing throb of his blood only increased. “Thank you,” he stuttered.

Severus did not look up from his cleaning. “It is far past time you had something to do aside from wandering the streets of London. You seemed…content…when you worked at the bookshop, and I thought…”

Remus never found out what Severus thought, because he was struck then with an uncontrollable impulse. He rose from the bed and grabbed Severus’s left wrist, hard. Severus stopped talking and turned to watch as Remus pulled up his black sleeve, knelt down, and found the tiny skull tattoo at the bend of his elbow. He traced over it with the light touch of his fingers.

Severus tried to pull away. “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice tinged with panic.

“Something I should have done weeks ago,” Remus answered, as he leaned in and kissed the little mark, letting his tongue lick over it, his lips enclose it and suck at it, until it was red and wet on Severus’s arm. 

Severus had frozen solid. Remus raised his gaze to Severus’s pale face and their eyes met. 

Severus swallowed. “You don’t have to…”

Remus pulled his lips away and said, “Yes. I do.” He allowed his kisses to rise up Severus’s arm until he was craning up and licking along Severus’s throat under his ear. He did not release Severus’s arm, letting his thumb gently rub against the skull mark as he dragged his tongue along Severus’s jaw and found his lips.

Their kisses in the past weeks had been cool and rare, one of the many signs of the distance they had let grow between them, but this kiss was deep and raw, all open mouths and tongues and teeth. Neither of them closed their eyes. 

“I miss kissing you, Severus Snape,” Remus murmured in to Severus’ lips.

“So I gather,” Severus replied, before he pressed in again and locked his lips against Remus’s, then pulled them up their feet and stumbled, still grasping and kissing, over to the bed. 

Remus was not in any hurry, and neither was Severus it seemed, as they both contented themselves with lying wrapped together and sharing long, deep kisses that Remus could feel in his toes, in his fingertips. Hands gripped hair and necks, and the past weeks melted away.

Remus knew there was one more thing he had to say. He drew back, and met Severus’s eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

Severus stared back and nodded once, his eyes unusually clear. Then he said, in an odd non-sequiter, “Thomas Mulciber is dead.”

 _Anton Dolohov, Thomas Mulciber, Angharad Owen, Sarah Selwynn, Regulus Black_. The note. The names that had been drummed into his brain for months. Gideon’s murderers. Remus’s heart stopped. 

“What do you mean?” 

“An anonymous letter arrived informing the Dark Lord that Mulciber had been revealing his secrets to the enemy. Tonight was his trial. He was found disloyal and killed as an example to us all.” Remus shuddered and drew back from the dispassionate tone in Severus’s voice. “That is where I went tonight. I needed to be there.”

“Why?” Remus asked, suddenly aware that he knew why. _An anonymous letter._

“To be sure he confessed,” Severus said quietly, letting Remus fill in the blanks between his words. 

Remus closed his eyes and breathed in hard. He couldn’t speak, his mind reeling, his body flooded with heat.

“You…did that for me,” he rasped at last, his throat dry. 

Severus leaned in and kissed him with those wide, subtle lips. “Did what?” he asked, his eyes glittering. 

This was the moment, Remus realized later, when he truly made his choice. Kissing a little mark on an arm was easy, really. Severus’s darkness, he allegiance to the enemy, his ruthlessness, had all been hypothetical until now, an abstract fact that Remus could ignore at will.

Severus had arranged someone’s death. For him. Because Remus wanted it. Because Remus needed it. 

It was horrible. And perfect. _Gods_

His mind clouded over, overwhelmed with incompatible reactions until all that was left were the base urges of his body. His body was not conflicted at all.

Remus lunged into Severus, ripping at his robes, needing to be against that skin, inside that body, a body that would hurt for him, plot for him. That loved him.

They fucked hard and rough, clothing ripped and dangling from limbs, Remus dragging an intense orgasm out of Severus with his tongue and teeth and fingers before he pounded into him with wild abandon and came hard, howling. 

The aftershocks of his climax rocketed through Remus’s body for minutes after, and Severus’s hot hands claimed him, touching every part of his body as he cooled and calmed and tried to make sense of the chaos in his mind.

Finally, Remus sat up abruptly, knowing what he needed.

“You didn’t need to do that. Mulciber, I mean,” Remus said, as his breathing calmed and his mind cleared. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“I know,” Severus replied. 

“No. You don’t,” Remus said, pushing himself up on his elbows, his voice stern, almost angry. His heart was pounding like a drum. “It would kill me if something happened to you. Don’t hurt yourself for me. Don’t take risks. Don’t make enemies. Please. I need you here.” Remus ran his fingers through Severus’s long hair. “Please. Promise me. Promise me you won’t take a risk like that again.” He paused and inhaled hard. "Promise me you will be here with me."

Severus’s lips were pursed as he thought for a long moment, and then he nodded. “If you will promise that as well,” he said.

“I do. I promise,” Remus replied, and kissed him, sliding back down into Severus’s arms and pulling him close. "Fuck, Severus, I _promise_."

He wasn’t sure, but a rush of magic seemed to pass between them in that moment, like a cord winding around them both.

Remus could feel Severus’s heartbeat against his own. They lay still and silent for a long time, tensed and tingling and scared. The world was vast and dark, and their small space together was the only safe place for either of them, really.

Severus stroked Remus’s back until the tension started to drain away and Remus could breathe out again.

Shouting and noise broke out in the alley below. Remus turned to the clock. It was midnight.

“Happy New Year, Severus,” Remus said in a whisper.

“That is unlikely, Lupin,” Severus replied.

“It is worth a try, at least, isn’t it?” Remus asked, his fingers once again exploring the tiny mark on Severus’s arm.

The corners of Severus’s mouth twitched. 

“Perhaps.”

Their first kiss of the new year tasted like hope.


End file.
